


A Gift of Sunlight

by EldritchMage



Series: Kili and Tauriel [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, First Love, First Time Sex, Interspecies Awkwardness, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Romance, cheeky kili, nasty Orcs, post-battlefield angst, the dark side of Tauriel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 22:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3586134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchMage/pseuds/EldritchMage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I didn't like Kili dying, either, so here's a might-have-been. I hope you enjoy it!</p><p>When Bilbo managed to sneak Kili and the rest of Uncle Thorin's company out of King Thranduil's larder in barrels, Kili thought the whole thing was a lark. He changed his mind when the Elves blocked the river gates, and Orcs swarmed to kill them as they floated helplessly in the water. He managed to dodge both Elves and Orcs to open the gates, sending his companions racing down the river. He dove in after them, but he missed the barrel next to Ori, and tumbled over the waterfall into... nothing.</p><p>Where was he? And why did thoughts of a certain Elf warrior maid keep distracting him? It wasn't as if he'd ever get to see such a beautiful vision again...</p><p>Please leave me a comment to let me know how you liked my tale. Thanks!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gift of Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read Tauriel's version of this tale, please see "Ancalima Hendi". The sequel to this and "Ancalima Hendi" is called "Innikh Dê", so take a look if you're interested.

I woke slowly. Every bit of me hurt so badly that I wished I hadn’t. The last time I’d been pummeled this hard had been the day that Flói and Frár had jumped me and left me battered and bleeding in a ditch. Freak, they’d called me, and worse; the former, because they thought I was too tall, too dark, and too beardless to be a proper Dwarf; the latter, because I didn’t know who my father was. Regardless of whom my mother might’ve favored, it’s never bothered me that I’m six inches taller than normal, or that my hair is wavy black rather than stiff brown or straight blond or kinky red... eh, I don’t like my lack of a proper beard; I’ve managed only a black scruff that does nothing to conceal my sharp chin and high cheekbones. Not the handsomest of Dwarves, to be sure. But I’m as sturdy and strong as any of my race, and a good smith. A master Dwarf general had trained me to be a fine warrior, too. If those bastards had had the courage to attack me head on, I wouldn’t have been the one to fall senseless in a watery ditch. Thank the Valar that the water had shocked me back to consciousness, or I would have drowned in pond scum. What a pathetic end that would have been.

I didn’t lie in a ditch today. No, today I lay in a pool fifty feet across with water beating down on me as hard as hammers on an anvil, barely able to get my head up to breathe – to cough, truth be told. I barely got enough air in my lungs before I realized that a stiff current was about to drag me into deeper water – icy deeper water. My limbs shook almost more than I could control, and my soaked boots were so heavy that I fought them as well as my own weight to drag myself to shore. It was a good thing the Elves had stripped me down to shirt and trews. If I’d been encumbered with my heavy deerskin coat and bow, I wouldn’t have had the strength to keep my head up. As it was, I floundered onto a mossy bank only seconds before I couldn’t move at all. I lay back hacking, shivering, and grateful to be alive.

Once I was safely out of the water, with enough breath to clear my vision, I sat up. I was in a dim space that stretched beyond sight, silent but for the tumult of falling water. Before me was the pool that had almost been my death. Beyond it was the waterfall some thirty feet high that had pummeled me. Sunlight filtered through the falling water to cast ripples of light over this indistinct space. I’d fallen over that waterfall –

My brother, Fíli, my uncle, Thorin, our ten fellow Dwarf companions, and the little hobbit Bilbo floated precariously in Elvish barrels down the river that ran away from that waterfall, racing farther away from me with each moment that passed. A pack of Orcs pursued them, and a patrol of Woodland Elves pursued them.

I scrambled to my feet. If I’d fallen down that waterfall, maybe there was a path up it, which would lead me back to my companions.

An hour’s frantic search of the rocks by the waterfall revealed no path up, only a black Orcish arrow. It had nearly skewered me when I’d scrambled out of my barrel to open the river gate that blocked my companions’ escape from King Thranduil’s underground realm. It wasn’t just luck that had allowed me to dodge that poisoned black arrow. If Tauriel hadn’t put her arrow in the Orc that had shot at me, his aim would have been true, and I would have been crippled or worse when I’d leaped over the river gate after my companions. As it was, I missed the barrel beside Ori, and I’d plunged headfirst into the water and over the waterfall in a tumble. At the bottom, I’d gone under like a stone, gotten caught in the roiling water, and sucked down deeper. Just as I’d run out of air, the water had flung me against rocks, rammed me down a tight chasm, and finally spat me into emptiness to sail over a second waterfall, this one behind and below the first one. I’d hung in midair long enough to suck in a single lungful of air, then fallen flat on my back into the pool below. That had emptied my lungs in a whoosh and smacked me unconscious. However long after that, I’d coughed myself back into the world... wherever I was in this world.

This might be my first foray away from home, but I’ve been trained to quickly assess my situation and act accordingly. So why was the first question that came to mind about a maid? An Elvish one, at that?

Why had the captain of King Thranduil’s Elvish guard saved me from an Orc’s arrow?

I dragged myself back to business. I was still in Thranduil’s realm, and my companions were leaving me farther behind with every moment that passed. I had to get out of this hole with all possible speed.

I circled away from the pool and waterfall, using the sound to keep myself oriented. I took the black arrow with me, for it was the only weapon I had. On the one hand, maybe I was still underground, because there was rock overhead, if pierced here and there with openings that let in filtered sunlight. On the other, trees grew around me – albeit trees that looked light starved and spindly. When I looked closer, the puzzle increased. These trees had been hale and healthy at some time in the past, for the trunks of the oldest were weighty. If they’d had light to grow so large, why didn’t they have it now? And how could they have had it in the first place with so much rock above them?

As I slipped warily through the trees, I found paths, statues, and what must once have been the borders of gardens. All were long abandoned, mossed over, broken, and what plants still grew in the borders were ones that survived on little light. Here and there, where sunlight penetrated, a few light-seeking shrubs or the rare stunted flower struggled upward. Too tall, too dark, and too unbearded I might be, but I have my people’s stone and metal sense, and stone is what I felt under my feet, if buried under some scant feet of earth. I felt it around and over me, as well. This was part of the same limestone cavern that sheltered King Thranduil and his people.

As I wandered, I came upon pillars and obelisks that stretched to the rocky ceiling hundreds of feet above me, all carved and shaped to mimic trees, vines, and flowers. The cell that had been my unwelcome home for a week had been almost as elaborately carved – a beautiful, if uncomfortable, abode. Despite the animosity between our people, I admired their skill to carve stone into this most lifelike mirage of a real forest. The wizards Gandalf and Radagast had said that Mirkwood had once been beautiful and lush with life. Maybe the Elves had shaped and planted this cavern to remind them of when the Greenwood had been a safe refuge without poisonous fungi, black bats, bloated spiders, and murderous Orcs. Seeing their work, I could understand their mourning the loss of such a beautiful wood.

I relaxed the edge of my wariness, because at least a hundred years had passed since anyone, be they Elf, Orc, Dwarf, wizard, Hobbit, or Man, had set foot in this place. An edge was all I relaxed, because while a hundred years was a third of a life for Dwarves, it was but a moment for Elves. Just because they hadn’t been here in a hundred years didn’t mean they wouldn’t cross my path today.

I wandered stealthily for miles. I found no path up the rocks, no door to any part of Thranduil’s kingdom. I did, however, find more signs of ancient Elvish presence. Perhaps my first guess about this place was right, for I found pavilions where Elves might once have gathered. Maybe they’d eaten at these long tables while listening to music as I had in Rivendell a few weeks ago when Lord Elrond had hosted us. Now, there was an Elf I respected. Despite my uncle’s ill temper, Lord Elrond had been gracious and forbearing of our rough Dwarvish ways, and I had enjoyed wandering through Rivendell. They’d even let me peek into their famed forges. Their smiths had been stiff and standoffish at first, but gradually had answered my questions about their work even though there is little love between our races – because of bad manners on both sides, I admit. But Elrond was not one of the Woodland Elves who had earned Dwarfish enmity with their betrayal when Erebor had fallen with the arrival of Smaug the firedrake. Compared to Lord Elrond, King Thranduil was an arrogant, posturing snot. The captain of his guard, however...

I sighed. _All right, Kíli. You’re going to think about her, despite all reason not to. So think about her, but try to keep enough of an eye out that you don’t trip over your own feet. Fíli’s not here to rescue you if you get in a tangle._

I kept my eyes open and my feet straight as I thought about Tauriel, gloved in the green of emerald leaves, her tall body as lissome as a reed, her knives glinting in Mirkwood’s poisonous air as she killed spiders the size of houses. The flash of her red hair had been like flames about her. Her green eyes had flashed, too, when I’d begged her for a knife, a knife she hadn’t given me but instead had hurled straight into the brain of the huge spider about to grab me. Maybe it had been contempt in her eyes when she’d first looked at me... but a second later, I thought it had glimmered into something more considering. My eyes had been so full of delight to watch her. Maybe she saw that. The way she moved, with surety and speed and grace and eldritch power...

_She is a foot taller than you are, and an Elf with no love of Dwarves. She wouldn’t look at a handsome Dwarf in his prime, much less a young one who is too tall, too dark, and too unbearded. Haven’t enough Dwarf maids told you how ugly you are? Even the few who teased you did so only because you’re Fíli’s younger brother, and he’s the heir to the Throne of Erebor, which isn’t even a real kingdom. Right now, it’s a Dwarvish grave and the bed of a northern firedrake, and you are nothing but an ugly, wet Dwarf with nothing but an Orc’s poisoned arrow between you and an entire kingdom of hostile Woodland Elves._

Maybe Tauriel wasn’t quite so hostile as all that, I thought, trying to boost my spirits. When I’d been imprisoned in her king’s bare cell, she’d come down of a night to pause at my barred door, drawn by who knows what, and we’d talked a little. She’d told me about starlight, and I her about fire moons. Maybe I’d imagined her green eyes warming with the tiniest bit of interest... or maybe she just wanted to stare at a talking animal, too. Still, when she’d returned my mother’s rune stone to me, she’d touched my hand long enough for me to feel the smoothness of her fingers and smell the cool fragrance of her skin. Just those few hints had smitten me badly. She was a beautiful maid, but her fire as well as her beauty had drawn me, and my body had responded eagerly.

I was brought out of my reverie with a shock, for my body was responding eagerly now, too. A hard cock wouldn’t help me to get out of this place, or failing that, at least to find a defensible place to hide.

Still, how beautiful she would be in the silken dress of green and gold that I imagined her wearing to her celebration of starlight...

_Keep your mind on here and now, Kíli!_

I shook myself again. Above me, the sun was shifting west, and I still had no idea of how far this cavern extended. What I needed was a higher vantage point, such as a tree strong enough to bear my weight. It didn’t take long to find a copse of oaks growing under one of the larger crevasses to the outside. I climbed one nearly to the top, but it was still two hundred feet or more from the top of the cavern, so I wouldn’t get out that way. It did, however, give me a long view in all directions. Even through the bare branches, the cavern stretched miles in all directions. It would take me a month to thoroughly search it.

I sat in the tree a while, considering. The waterfall I’d tumbled down hadn’t been far from the cellar where Bilbo had packed us all like apples in barrels for our escape. If the waterfall was there, then Thranduil’s cellar lay to my left, which meant that I’d look right for a place to hide. Maybe the cavern wall would reveal a tunnel or crevice to the outside, too. I climbed down and set off.

An hour’s walk brought me to the cavern wall. It stretched up in jagged buttresses, too sheer and too slippery with dark green moss to climb. None of the Elf pavilions were near, and this area was more tangled with dead vines and trees than what I’d seen so far. On the one hand, pursuit would have a hard time finding me in so much wrack, but on the other, there was nowhere protected enough to sleep. I hadn’t seen animals yet, but that didn’t mean something hungry wouldn’t appear when the sun dimmed. I hadn’t found anything to eat, either, and my stomach growled. Just a day ago, I’d thought my prison ration of bread, cheese, and water was laughably meager. Right now, it’d be a feast. I pulled my belt tighter and kept walking.

Just as I resigned myself to perching precariously in a half dead tree for the night, the Valar took pity on me. I came on another ancient border, this one full of edible plants that grew thickly under a wide strip of sunlight. I remembered Ori refusing to eat much of Lord Elrond’s feast because he didn’t like green food, but I imagined that even he would greet these plants with relief. They weren’t meat, and they wouldn’t sustain me for long, but there were enough of them that I’d make do for a while, if not richly. I ventured a single leaf, only a bite, to see if it was truly the herb I thought it was. After a few moments without reaction, I stuffed myself full, careful to take only one leaf here and another there, so as not to reveal my presence.

With my belly grateful for the meal, I looked around with fresh eyes. There, past the edge of the stream, a bit up the cavern wall... did I sense metal? Not ore, not stone, but smithed metal. I headed for it quickly, still keeping a wary eye. Soon I stood at the wall of the cavern, looking up at a round disc perhaps four feet across, peculiarly concaved like a shallow basin. It rested in a smithed metal frame mounted on a plinth carved into the limestone. Shallow steps had been cut from the floor of the cavern up the side of the plinth, hard to see at a distance through its disguise of carved ivy. I clambered up cautiously. This stone was very old, and not far from crumbling, but I reached the metal disc without mishap.

The disc had once been polished, but was now dull with age. I rubbed my fingers over it to polish away the dust and sand. It was fine bronze, which came clean with little effort, even after all this time. It was askew on its support, too, which I righted. As the disc shifted into the sunlight, a blaze of light grew in the small space I’d cleaned and beamed across the cavern to what must be a second disc, for the shaft of light angled sharply to the right and down. Through the trees, I could just see the light pooling on the cavern floor to illuminate a large bordered area.

I laughed quietly. This was no basin, but a mirror, angled to direct the scattered light from the cavern ceiling onto the ancient gardens below. Gloin had told me of a similar arrangement to bring precious light deep into the caverns of Erebor, turning it into the fabled underground city of light. Was this disc of Dwarvish make, then? A tracery of flowers rather than Dwarvish knotwork graced the edge of the disc, but the hammering was distinctive, and the mechanics of the disc and stand were familiar. This was older than the feud between Dwarves and Elves forged sixty years ago, then.

Now why did that make me think of Tauriel and the considering light in her eyes as she looked at me? It wasn’t as if this sign of an ancient collaboration between craft workers boded well for a newer one between a red-haired Elf maid and me.

As I reproached myself for my lapse, I realized that the cavern wall near the second mirror wasn’t as featureless as I’d thought. The increased light revealed no more detail, but to a Dwarf a faint bobble in the feel of the stone was clear even at this distance. I jumped down from the plinth and set off for the far off wall, keeping the beam of light above me as my guide. It was rough work to worm my way through the tangled undergrowth, but the waning day drove me. At last I found the second mirror, and to the left of it, the bobble.

It was a door. Subtly carved to look like the rest of the limestone, invisible if you weren’t aware of where to look, but a door, nevertheless. It was also twenty feet over my head, with no way to reach it. No, that wasn’t so – a tree branch dipped tantalizingly close, just above it. I needed no encouragement to slither up the tree. Fíli proclaims that I am reckless to anyone who listens, and he’s right, but I maintain that sometimes you have to be reckless if you want to make something out of nothing. Maybe it was reckless to trust such brittle remains of an old tree, but it worked, if not gracefully. I swung back and forth from the branch, risking my weight against the dry wood until I touched the stone door with the toe of my boot. On the next swing I kicked, which made the branch creak alarmingly, but it also nudged the door ajar. A second kick had the door open. On my final swing, I threw myself off the branch and through the door. The branch groaned but held, and I tumbled through the door and into the dark chamber more or less unscathed. I pushed the door further open to let in more light.

The chamber, sadly, didn’t lead anywhere, so I was still the cavern’s prisoner. But it was a good place to hide in more comfort than I’d expected. It was quite large. Bright frescoes of flowers and trees covered on the smooth walls between carved ribs of limestone, transforming the limestone walls into a rose bower. Against the far wall was a bed platform beautifully carved from the rock, and to my left was an equally beautiful fireplace. Carved wooden tables sat by each side of the bed, and a matching wooden bench sat at the foot. Fanciful glass lamps perched atop the tables, and a dusty sleeping pad with ancient linens dressed the bed. Perhaps this was a trysting spot from long ago where Elvish lords and ladies whiled away the day. I grinned wryly. Its latest occupant would be a hungry and bedraggled Dwarf who could only wish for a tryst with a particular Elf maid.

The dimming light shook me out of my reverie yet again. I couldn’t indulge yet. This was the best spot I’d found to hide, and it behooved me to keep it hidden. I had to backtrack to the first mirror and unseat it from its base so that the path of its light didn’t call attention to my haven. So off I ran, this time risking more speed to get there and back again before the sun fell. I brought a large collection of Ori’s hated green food with me, and shimmied up the tree and into my bolt hole in better spirits, ready to find what ease I could.

I stripped my still damp shirt, trews, and smalls, glad to lay them over the fireplace to dry during the night. It was even better to pull off my sodden boots. They held at least a pound of water apiece, so I wrung them out as best I could and upended them on the bedposts. The dry remains of silken bedding spared me from having to plant my naked backside on the cold stone floor. So I was hidden, drying out, and better fed than I expected before the sun faded. As darkness fell, I made the best nest I could out of the old bedding, and settled in for the night.

Of course, now I had no reason not to think of Tauriel, or wish that she nestled beside me. In the dark, perhaps I wouldn’t seem so ugly, or so foreign, and I could coax her into a tryst to remember.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, I took stock with dry clothes and renewed energy, though my boots were still soggy. Despite my distraction about Tauriel, I was still eager to make my way back to my companions, so after a green breakfast I set out to reconnoiter. I covered enough ground that day to know that I’d been right about needing weeks to explore the entire cavern. I didn’t find any paths outside, which dimmed my hopes of escape. I didn’t find any animals to hunt, either. I wasted an hour or so looking for fish in the stream, but gave that up when I realized that if I caught one I’d have to eat it raw, because I wasn’t foolish enough to risk a fire to cook it. I didn’t think anyone would see the flames, but the cavern hosted a steady breeze, and the smell of smoke might work its way into the Elves’ part of the cavern and draw someone to investigate. For now, Ori’s hated green food was my only food.

I found several more of the trysting chambers, one so elegant that it must have been the king’s own. Call me rash, but I moved into that one, not because of who might have frequented it, but because it had a sturdier tree to bear my weight going in and out, and a stone courtyard below that didn’t reveal my footprints. It also had a fine window set in a high ceiling that let in the moonlight of a night, and sunlight to wake me of a morning.

As the sun dimmed, I munched my greens with a sigh. I hoped my companions had made their way to Laketown without injury. They surely considered me dead, and wouldn’t come back to look for me no matter how much Fíli begged them. The Elves didn’t know I was here, either. So I was parted from friends as well as foes, the first a curse, the second a blessing for as long as it lasted. It might not last but a few months, anyway, even if no one found me, for greens alone wouldn’t sustain me for long. So what was I going to do with myself between now and then? Besides moon over an Elf maid, of course...

I fell asleep, pondering.

The next morning, I woke with a smile. A purpose had come to me in the night, something reckless, perverse, futile, and pointless. I would keep looking for a way out, but I would also make the cavern mirrors shine again, and the garden beneath them bloom. Tauriel would never see it, but I would do it in her honor because she’d saved my life, to prove that Dwarvish engineering and Elvish artistry together made beauty.

I hoped that Tauriel might think it was in some small part romantic, too... if anyone told her about it two hundred years from now.

 

* * *

 

In two week’s time, I’d found nearly fifty bronze mirrors. Polishing went quickly with handfuls of fine sand from the stream, and all but ten of the supporting bases were sound or within my ability to repair. The remaining ones needed smithing, but it was easy to rig replacement pieces into place, even without a knife or sword. So much forest detritus lay about that all I had to do was look for a branch or vine the size or shape that I wanted and I’d soon find it. Soon the mirrors were clean, their supports were sound, and all was ready to bring light into the cavern again. I positioned the mirrors in order, for most had remained closely enough aligned to their original position that I could easily fine-tune the path of the beam towards the next mirror. The cavern brightened a bit at a time as I worked, revealing many things I hadn’t yet discovered – more statues, follies, arbors, and pavilions. What a stunning place this had been once. I hoped that after I died, the Elves would rediscover it and continue its transformation.

I found a bit of fine hammer stone with a thin edge, which made a fine chisel. Across the cavern wall, right under the king’s trysting chamber where I slept, I carved Dwarvish runes into the limestone that proclaimed who I was and why I’d brought the cavern back into the light. Given that I’d seen no living thing other than birds and insects since I’d fallen in here, I didn’t consider the carving a reckless act, but Fíli would probably disagree.

I hoped my brother was still alive, wherever he was.

I hoped Tauriel thought kindly of the dark Dwarf who’d told her about fire moons.

Day after day, the one thing that the growing light stubbornly refused to reveal was a way out. I was close to wishing even for a way into the Elves’ kingdom, just to get something to eat. Hunger was my closest companion, to the point that I considered whether I could gnaw nourishment out of my boots. My teeth were strong enough, and so was my need.

Now that the mirrors were in place, I needed something to keep me busy. I didn’t have the reserves to practice fighting drills, so I took to weeding the garden borders nearest to my haven. The work wasn’t too strenuous, so I kept a bit more meat on my bones. Once I cleared the ruin of branches and leaves and broken stone away, I found to my delight that sprouts emerged almost faster than thought. Perhaps there was something good about Woodland Elvish magic, after all, for it seemed that whole plants sprang up overnight, bursting first into leaf and then into blooms of every color. Blessed Valar, berries and other edibles appeared, and I wasn’t so hungry. I found tubers and corms that would have been delicious baked and slathered with butter and cream, but if they weren’t so delicious raw, they were just as filling. I stopped drooling when I thought about my boots.

Just when I’d almost resigned myself to being a captive gardener, I found another door – hidden, secreted between shifting veins of colored limestone, and carved to blend seamlessly with the rock, but a door, nevertheless. Not to the outside world, of course, but to the Elvish kingdom, which made me think long and hard before I tried to open it. The cavern was peaceful and quiet as it reclaimed its beauty, and I had a little to eat, though I was rapidly coming to share Ori’s view of green food as the sum total of my meals. I missed my brother and my companions, even the ever-shifty Nori. And I had a reputation for recklessness to uphold. So after a day or two, I sidled up to the door to see if I could open it.

Of course, it was well and firmly stuck, as if it hadn’t been opened in a hundred years, which it hadn’t been. It was only what I should have expected, but it discouraged me, all the same. I turned back to my gardening with a curse... yet in an hour I was back to poke and pry again. I didn’t have a smith’s tools to work on the hinges and lock, but I knew which plants held oil to loosen stiff metal, and which had waxy leaves to ease old wood. I worked slowly, cautiously, because I didn’t know what lay behind this door. It likely didn’t lead to a closet or a storeroom, but perhaps a hallway, and that meant that Elves might pass by. When I opened this door, I didn’t want to find a horde of them pointing their fine arrows at my heart.

The following evening, the door was ready. I waited until deepest dark, perhaps three in the morning, to ease it open. All was dark before me. I left it ajar as I slipped inside to find... the storeroom I hadn’t expected, littered with forgotten bottles and brooms and a broken crock. A dead end, then – no! It was a storeroom, yes, but also a pass through to another door beyond. I eased it open to find a room cloaked in darkness, but I tiptoed forward. The room beyond was a true larder, full of the divine, maddening smell of ham and cheese and apples and pastries and a hundred other toothsome things. I barely kept myself from stuffing my face full, but such an impulse might be the death of me, so I left the bewitching array of food untouched.

I stuck my head out of the larder. Yes, this was the cellar where Bilbo had cajoled our company into barrels and sent us careening into the river. But there would not be a second such escape, for a pair of tall Elves sat firmly on guard with knives at the ready. They were wide-awake and grim-faced, so I carefully eased back into the larder. I sneaked a napkin from a big stack of them and filled it with slices of ham and cheese, a couple of meat pies from a pile of them, six big rolls from an even bigger pile, and a crock of butter. A full rack of wine tempted me to filch a couple of bottles from the back, then I deemed it time to return to the cavern. I had enough presence of mind to check for footprints, and carefully swept the dusty floor to camouflage my entry. I eased the door shut, and made off with my booty.

Supper that night was sumptuous. I ate until I was so full that I felt as huge as Bombur. I got more than a little drunk on heady Elvish wine, too. It was red in the moonlight, which reminded me of fire moons, which reminded me of fiery Tauriel, and I had a nice long muse on how fine it would be if she sat beside me. Did Elves get drunk? Yes, yes, they did, because the only way Bilbo had gotten us into the barrels and onto the river was because the larder master and his mates had been as drunk as spring hares. I wouldn’t want Tauriel to get so drunk as that, just enough to make her smile when a dark Dwarf kissed her. Drunk enough to kiss me back.

It was a good way to fall asleep, smiling at the thought of an Elf’s sweet lips pressing against mine.

 

* * *

 

Give a Dwarf an inch, and he’ll take a league. Now that I’d gotten into the larder, unadorned greens didn’t look so attractive for supper. Every few days, deep in the night, I snuck in for supplies. I had to be utterly silent, because every night the same two Elves sat in the same two chairs holding the same grim knives as they kept watch over the barrel drop to the river. But with care, I learned that the larder led in a roundabout way to other storerooms, and soon I had blankets, pillows, sheets, a new shirt and coat, and even a knife, if only a kitchen implement. I had goblets and plates and forks, lanterns and candles and matches, soap and towels and a comb. I had so much that I could have been forgiven if I’d just given up on finding a way out, but I kept at it. This shadowy life as a burglar might suit Bilbo, but I couldn’t expect it to last forever, no matter how careful I was. One day, I’d be found out, and it behooved me to find my way back into the world before then.

Still, no matter how determined I was, the cavern remained closed around me, and I found no other doors. There were likely several, all hidden through Elvish magic beyond me. So I hid my bounty in my haven, kept working on the gardens in my old shirt and trews, refining the mirrors as I could, and encouraging the plants around me with what skill I had. Oin, apothecary that he was, would have been better suited to such husbandry, but I remembered what he’d taught me of his lore to encourage the most suitable plants for each bit of sun or shade or mist or rock.

I had no sense of how much time had passed since I’d fallen over the waterfall. A month? Two? Three? Despite the rhythm of the sun, time blurred here, passing both too swiftly and too slowly for the rest of the world. Where were my brother, my uncle, and my traveling companions? Had they found the way into Erebor, and what had become of the firedrake? Perhaps they were all dead, or scattered. At times I thought about revealing myself to the Elves, just to find out. But I didn’t, because I’d think of Tauriel, and then I’d want to keep living just to see her again.

I’d fallen so completely under the spell of the cavern that I didn’t hear the pair of Elves come up behind me. I had my hands full of plants to move from one border to a better one, and I’d forgotten where I’d laid the black Orcish arrow or my kitchen knife. The Elves stared up at the nearest mirror, smiling in amazement at the light and the lush greenery, while I stared down at the border that would shelter the plants I held. At sound of their boots, I whirled to face them, both of them as flatfooted as I. Our eyes met at the same time, then the yelling started. It was likely a funny moment, but the Elves had to spoil it by trampling through my border after me when I turned tail and ran. I wasn’t a coward, but they had long knives and I didn’t, and I knew the value of discretion. I was on familiar ground, too, and they weren’t. So I was able to double back on them and send one of the Elves into the dirt with a flying kick, grabbing his knife neatly on his way down. Then I was off after the other.

What would I do when I got the other one, exactly? If I killed him, then I’d likely die for it. Could I take him hostage and trade his life for a way out of here?

Sadly, I didn’t have the chance to find out. The Elf I tripped doubled back on me, and used my trick to send me sprawling. I scrabbled to my feet only to be hauled up between the Elves like so much laundry.

“What devilry are you about, Dwarf?” the one in red robes snarled.

“Look around you, Elf, and tell me you call what I’m doing devilry,” I snarled right back. I tried to jerk away from their grasp, but stopped fighting when the one in brown robes stuck his knife under my chin.

“Who are you? How did you get in here, and why are you here?”

“Does it matter?” I shot back.

“Answer me, Dwarf, or I’ll cut your throat!”

Red Robes pulled me closer to look me up and down. His confusion cleared. He pushed me away roughly and looked down his long thin nose at me with disgust. “It’s one of Thorin Oakenshield’s companions. _Morier,”_ he spat. “It seems that not all of those foul Dwarves escaped as easily as we thought.”

Brown Robes muttered a curse under his breath, and I thought he was about to stick his knife between my ribs. But he merely gestured to Red Robes.

“The king will want to hear of this.”

They bound my hands behind me and hauled me off between them. I cast a look around at the transformed cavern, maybe for the last time. The arrogant and snotty King Thranduil would not be happy to see me.

 

* * *

 

I kept my composure as the two Elves manhandled me a few hundred yards towards the cavern wall. With a liquid Elvish word, one of the spelled doors I hadn’t had the magic to find was revealed, and we passed out of the cavern and into the darker, shadowed world of King Thranduil. Perhaps my stay in the cavern’s quiet had sharpened my ears, because I heard whispers in the shadows, a combination of susurrating Elvish words and skittering footsteps, as we passed. Then I heard the angry tones of King Thranduil as someone told him I was about to be thrown at his feet. I winced. I would have preferred to die in battle rather than be sacrificed before this arrogant snot of an Elf king, but I’d do my best not to grovel before I died.

I fell at the king’s feet in an untidy, awkward heap. I struggled to my knees, but Brown Robe’s boot between my shoulder blades kept me on my face.

“Get your foot out of my back or I’ll bite it off,” I snapped.

It was probably the king’s gesture that removed the boot, not my bravado, but whatever the case I was able to struggle back to my knees. King Thranduil was in full glare from the heights of his antlered throne, barely able to keep from spitting at me.

“So not all of Thorin Oakenshield’s companions escaped me,” he huffed. Truly, he was a snot, if all he could do was state the obvious. Of course not all of us had escaped – I was here, wasn’t I? “Tell me, Dwarf, did you remain here as a spy? To ferret out what you would about my plans so as to inform your lord?”

I met the king eye to eye. “That’s a nice, idea, that. I’d have done it if I’d been able. But I don’t suppose anyone’s told you where they found me, because if they had, you’d know that my chances to do so were impossible.”

Thranduil’s eyes flitted to Red Robes. “Where did you find him?”

“In _Glawar-galad_ , sire.”

Thranduil’s eyes flashed, but not at me. “Impossible. It’s been closed for two hundred years.”

“That’s... not entirely true, My Lord,” Red Robes equivocated. “The guard monitors it to ensure that it remains free of enemies. It was on our patrol that we discovered him.”

“And what was he doing” Thranduil demanded.

“Gardening,” I said sharply. “What else is there to do there?”

“There are many ways into and out of _Glawar-galad_ , Dwarf,” he snarled.

“I would’ve gladly fled through any of them, if I’d been able to find them,” I replied just as sharply. “But I don’t know your Elvish magic – I don’t even know any Dwarvish magic, for that matter – so I didn’t. I was the one who opened the gate to let my companions pass down the river. I was dragged under the waterfall when I tried to follow them, and once it spat me out into the cavern, your _Glawar-galad_ , there was no way out of it for me. So I made the best of a poor situation and tried to do right by the place. You Elves have left it in a terrible state, likely because you’re too stubborn to ask for a Dwarf’s help to repair the mirrors that brought light into the cavern. I fixed a few as best I could, and the place is coming along nicely. A thank you would be the least you could offer, but I don’t expect you to agree with me.”

The only thing that kept King Thranduil from cutting me off was the sheer incredibility of my story and the cheeky way I delivered it. Either amazement or fury rendered him speechless, so I got to my feet and mustered what dignity I could. I had nothing to lose by matching his arrogance with my own, and I’d feel better if I died on my feet rather than on my face. I hoped he couldn’t hear how my heart pounded in my chest.

“Get me the captain of the guard,” King Thranduil growled, and Brown Robes retreated to do his lord’s bidding. Now my heart had entirely another reason to race. Please, Valar, let it be my precious Tauriel to answer the king’s summons. When hasty footsteps drew close, I held my breath, and turned.

It was she. Beautiful Tauriel, with red hair like flames and green eyes like emeralds, Tauriel who moved like the lithest of deer and the swiftest of birds. It was she.

She stopped all at once, and the color drained from her face. A moment later, it was back, and her cheeks flamed as brightly as her hair.

Oh, and oh, and oh. She _had_ remembered me; she _had_ missed me; she _had_ mourned me. I saw it in her eyes, heard it in her stilled breath, felt it in the shock of air that brought me the scent of her skin. Nothing could slow my heart now, because she was here and was glad to see me, and no bonds or kings or threats could take that from me.

“I thought you were dead,” she blurted.

“So did I,” I shrugged, as if it were of no importance. The king and Red Robes were behind me, so I winked at her.

Tauriel’s eyes veiled. “How did he come here, My Lord?” she asked the king. “We thought him drowned in the river when his kin fled our realm.”

“So we did,” King Thranduil replied, drily. “Kamdir claims that that he was found in _Glawar-galad_. The Dwarf claims that he was gardening.”

“I was,” I said, not dropping my eyes from Tauriel. “I could find no way out, so I took it upon myself to make something of the ruin in which I found myself. I thought maybe someone would find my bones in a few hundred years, and appreciate that the hand of a Dwarf had made a jewel out of a ruined garden despite old feuds.”

Now I had four Elves at a loss for words. Tauriel rallied first. “What would you have us do with the Dwarf, My Lord?”

“Return him to the cell that held him when he first arrived. Let him consider his predicament while I consider what to do with him.”

“If it pleases you, King Thranduil,” I turned towards him, “I would ask you to let me stay in your _Glawar-galad_. I cannot escape it –your guards can vouch for that. I’m just a Dwarf, not a lizard that can scale a sheer, three-hundred-foot limestone wall and skitter across a flat rock ceiling. If I must remain a prisoner, I’d rather occupy my hands in a garden than hold them idle in a cell. And would not your people welcome the return of such a place?”

“What could a Dwarf do that would possibly be of any use to me or my people?”

“I repaired your bloody mirrors that brought light into the cavern, for starters,” I shot back, drawing the king to his feet in a rush. If I kept this up, I’d soon find myself choking on my blood, but I’d gone too far to stop now. “They were made by Dwarves – did you know that? Well, they were, and now a Dwarf has set them right again after the Valar know how many years of neglect. If you’re going to pack me away, you might as well do it in a way that gets you something. Caging me in a dark cell doesn’t. Letting me tend your _Glawar-galad_ does.”

The king drew himself up to his tallest. I gave it even odds whether he’d draw the spectacular sword at his side and run me through with it, or just spit at me. But more footsteps broke his concentration. Another Elf, tall and blond, joined us. I remembered him as one of those who had pursued us down the river.

“That is one of Thorin Oakenshield’s companions,” Blond Elf stated haughtily, his eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. “He stayed behind to do mischief, I warrant.”

“He says he’s been trapped in _Glawar-galad_ since his companions escaped,” Tauriel clarified. She hadn’t taken her eyes off me since we’d met, and my heart hadn’t slowed.

“He says what?” Blond Elf repeated in disbelief.

“So he claims,” King Thranduil murmured, all but sneering as he resumed his throne to glower at me. Quickly, though, that expression faded into an arrogant, self-satisfied smile. He flicked a hand at Tauriel. “Find out whether he has done the work he claims, and whether _Glawar-galad_ is the secure prison he claims. If both are true, then assign guards to hold him there. See to it personally, Tauriel. Do not give him the least chance to escape again.”

Blond Elf didn’t like that. Tauriel recognized his dislike too, but her expression remained dispassionate as she bowed to the king. She gestured to Red Robes.

“As you will, My Lord. Bring the Dwarf.”

I didn’t dare smile. I didn’t know how much of a reprieve I’d earned, but before it ran out I’d do my damnedest to talk to Tauriel again, and this time I wouldn’t stick to fire moons and starlight.

 

* * *

 

I held my tongue as I was marched back to _Glawar-galad_. Red Robes and Brown Robes held me roughly between them, and Tauriel paced behind. Blond Elf remained behind with the king. We re-entered the cavern by a different door this time, fortunately one where I’d cleared a few of the beds in sunlight. As we came into the light, Tauriel’s breath caught in surprise.

“Not bad, is it?” I said softly, trusting that she’d hear the smile in my words. “Starlight might be the light the Woodland Elves love best, but plants worship the sun, and when they do, they reward us with flowers.”

Neither she nor my two guards spoke, so I did. “It’s fifty fine bronze mirrors I’ve mended to catch the light to grace this place. I’ve got them polished pretty well, but a bit of jeweler’s emery would bring them right back to snuff. I’ve got most of the fittings back to snuff, too, but for the ones that need a smith’s hand. I could do that for you with the proper tools, but if an anvil and bellows and a hammer in a Dwarf’s hands frighten you, I can tell your Elvish smiths what needs doing. Or if you don’t have any smiths of your own, you can send to Lord Elrond in Rivendell for help. I met them on my way here, and they know what they’re about, I can tell you.”

A strangled sound behind me made me smile. If my two guards didn’t like my words, Tauriel found them hilarious enough to make her laugh. My heart soared at the sound –

– and came crashing down when Blond Elf appeared behind Tauriel with leg shackles in his hand and a smirk on his face. He handed them to Tauriel.

“By the king’s order,” he pronounced, staring daggers at me.

“My Lord Legolas,” Tauriel murmured, bowing her head briefly. She handed the shackles to Brown Robes, who fastened them over my boots with grim satisfaction. So Legolas was the king’s son. I should have guessed; I’d already decided that he was just as skilled as his father at stating the obvious and looking haughty. The shackles told me he was just as big a snot as his father, too. I glowered at his back as he retreated.

“Free his hands,” Tauriel ordered Brown Robes. I didn’t flinch as he yanked the ropes from my wrists hard enough to cut them. “Now, check the mirrors as the king ordered. Report to me when you have surveyed them all.”

“But the Dwarf – ” Red Robes began.

“Is safe enough with me,” Tauriel cut him off as she drew one of her knives. The two Elves murmured acknowledgement and moved off. Only then did I muster up a smile for the captain of the guard.

“You hope you aren’t going to be so sharp with me,” I said softly.

Tauriel sheathed her knife. “I’m sorry about the shackles. I would not have insulted you so.”

I shrugged. “They don’t change how happy I am to see you again.”

She met my eyes with that startled deer look I’d drawn from her before, then looked away. Her cheeks colored again. “Did you truly come here as you told the king?”

I waited until she looked up at me. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why?” I laughed. “I didn’t have a choice, Tauriel. I jumped after my companions, I got caught under the waterfall, and it spat me into this place rather than down the river. I fell thirty feet, hit the water so hard that it knocked me out, and only just dragged myself out before I drowned. Of course, I have to thank you for that.”

“Me? For you almost drowning?”

“No; for shooting that Orc that almost shot me. If you hadn’t ruined his aim, I likely wouldn’t have survived the fall. Even if I had, his poisoned arrow would have killed me within a few days.” I put my hand over my heart and bowed. “I thank you for my life.”

She nodded. “You are welcome.”

The silence stretched for some seconds. “How long have I been here, Tauriel? The days have blurred so badly that it must be weeks. What’s happened outside? Do you know if my brother survived? Do you know where he is now?”

Tauriel’s gaze was sharp, but confused. “Surely you know that it has been only a day since you plunged into the river.”

My eyes widened. “Only a day? But it can’t be. It can’t be just a single day, Tauriel. I’ve been here for months, if not longer. How else could I have worked on all the mirrors, cleaned all the borders...”

“Maybe you tell such a tale to confuse us, and you really are a spy.”

I drew myself up. “I’m not lying. I would never lie to you. But if you don’t believe me, then go around to all the mirrors and see for yourself. I can tell you exactly where each one is, how long it’ll take you to reach each one – which is a lot longer than a day, so don’t expect your two Elvish guardsmen to be back here anytime soon – and exactly what I’ve done to each one. Count how many of the garden borders are clear and growing. Then come back here and tell me you think I’ve told you a lie.”

Tauriel looked around the cavern with awe. “It is true, then. _Glawar-galad_ means Reflected Sunlight in the Common tongue. It’s said that this place is a timeless place – or at the very least, that time passes differently here than elsewhere. I have never been here, so I didn’t believe it until now. So I believe you.”

I grinned sheepishly. That explained why I thought the same two Elves stood guard in exactly the same place in exactly the same clothes each time I’d snuck into the larder, and why the stores never seemed to change. I must be the luckiest fool alive, to have raided the larder a dozen times in the course of a night without getting caught.

“A magic garden,” I mused, following Tauriel’s gaze. “Would you let me show you around?”

A smile touched her face. “Of course.”

We walked together slowly, the occasion marred only by the rattle and clank of my shackles. I explained the mirrors and led her among the few borders by the stream where I’d worked. I’d spent most of my efforts near my haven, but I didn’t want to reveal that yet. Tauriel’s face creased with a frown that only deepened as we proceeded. Did she resent me tampering with such an Elvish place? When her frown persisted, I drew her to a stop.

“Why do you frown, Tauriel? It wasn’t my intention to displease you.”

“Why did you do this, Kíli? In a place that belongs to a people who have imprisoned you, mistrusted you...”

“Don’t forget nearly drowning me, too,” I said lightly, drawing a troubled smile from her.

“I do not joke, Kíli. Tell me the truth. Why did you do this?”

“I’ll show you.” I took her hand boldly, gratified when she didn’t jerk it away. It’d be hours, if not days, before Tauriel’s two guardsmen came near, so I’d show Tauriel my haven. Fortunately, it wasn’t far, and the ground was not so littered that my shackles tripped me. When we stood at the wall, I pointed to the runes I’d carved. Tauriel regarded them without understanding.

“If you know something of runes, you know those are Dwarvish, not something any Elf would carve. If you know something of stonework, you know how long it takes to carve runes into limestone. That bit took me nearly a week because I don’t have proper tools.”

She shook her head. “I cannot read Dwarvish runes.”

I stepped forward to trace my finger over the carving. “I’ll read them to you. They say, ‘In the year 2941 of the Third Age, Kíli son of Dis of the Dwarves of Erebor returned the light to this place, in honor of Lady Tauriel of the Woodland Realm who saved his life. Thus may Elves and Dwarves remember when they worked hand in hand to bring beauty to the world.’ ”

It was my misfortune that Red Robes and Brown Robes chose that moment to report to Tauriel. She schooled her features into impassiveness as the two Elves confirmed that yes, they’d surveyed two of the mirrors well enough to confirm that they worked as I had described; yes, the gardens progressed as I claimed; no, there was no sign that the Elvish doors they’d passed had been touched; and yes, they expected it to take several days to survey the rest.

“Then tell the king that the Dwarf will remain here to await his pleasure,” Tauriel said, and dismissed them with a wave of her hand.

“That sounds dire,” I muttered under my breath as they retreated. I cast Tauriel a wry look. “I’m not partial to pleasure with another male, regardless of race, you know. I hope your king isn’t, either.”

The Elf maid looked scandalized, then realized I was teasing her. “I would not know how he takes his pleasure, but I do not think it is with Dwarves of either sex.”

“That’s a relief. Though if another Elf wanted to have her way with me, I’d quite look forward to it. I do hope it’s males who attract you – not to put too fine a point on it, I hope it’s a certain Dwarf male who attracts you. For you certainly attract me.”

First Tauriel started to sputter, then she flung herself around and stamped away. I held out my hands wide to her retreating back. “All right, all right, you’ve dragged it out of me. You don’t have to keep torturing me, Tauriel; I’ll tell you. All you have to do is turn around, and I’ll tell you everything.”

She stopped, turned around, but couldn’t decide whether to abandon me or listen. Reckless bravado had gotten me this far, so I plunged on.

“I’ll tell you everything, Tauriel. How you took my heart the first time I saw you because of the way you wielded those elegant knives of yours to save my life. How you’ve held my heart more securely than any prison ever since the night you told me about starlight and moonlight. How I lost all hope of escaping you when you saved my life a second time, when you kept an Orc from killing me. How my heart threatened to burst when I turned around in the throne room and saw you again. The least I can do for the fiery maid who holds my heart so completely is to give her the gift of sunlight in this garden, so that she’d think more kindly of me than her king does.”

Tauriel looked away in desperation, though whether it was because I repelled her or drew her, I didn’t know. I went to her, and took her hands in mine again.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks, Tauriel. I know how I feel. The merest thought of you makes me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt in my life. I want you to know that now, because I don’t know how long I have before your king kills me, or lets me go, or dooms me to your deepest dungeon. I don’t want to face any of those knowing I should have told you how I felt beforehand.”

With a convulsive swallow, Tauriel forced herself to look into my eyes. Would she accept my words, or turn them away? More importantly, did she feel what I did, or only disgust?

“Kíli,” she whispered. She knelt, which meant she had to look up into my eyes as she squeezed my hands. She put her lips close to my ear, her breath tickling it until I thought I’d die of want. “I am glad you are alive.”

She kissed my cheek. Then she rose and walked swiftly away.

“Tauriel, please. Will you come back?” I called after her. “Please.”

She stopped, looked back, and nodded. “I will come back.”

Then she was gone.

I basked in the wealth of feeling she’d put in my name; my ear and cheek tingled where she’d touched them. How did anyone contain such ecstasy without exploding? I shut my eyes and relived those precious seconds over and over and over again. I didn’t expect this to end like a children’s tale where everyone lived happily ever after. I expected to die, honestly. But a beautiful Elf warrior loved me, and that was more than I’d thought to earn in my life. Let King Thranduil do his worst, for he couldn’t take the warmth of Tauriel’s love from me.

He’d taken the warmth of my comfortable bed for the night, though. His damned shackles meant I couldn’t scale the tree outside my haven, so I’d have to make do on the ground. I snorted. He really was a snot.

 

* * *

 

Several days passed without interruption. The shackles make my life miserable, if not impossible, because I was reduced to sleeping on the ground and eating nothing but greens and raw tubers again, and I craved another visit from Tauriel so badly that I drove myself frantic. The borders I weeded were nothing if not well pounded. But in case someone unseen watched, I held my temper to fierce mutterings under my breath, because I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing a Dwarf despair.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t have welcomed anyone who appeared with a slab of beef on a plate like a brother, including the King and Prince of Snot.

Luckily, it was Tauriel who appeared, albeit with a pair of guardsmen and two other Elves in tow. The guards were Green Coat and Blue Robe, and the others were likely smiths, given their clothing. Despite the sneers of the guards, I couldn’t keep the delighted grin off my face as I scrambled to my feet.

“My Lady Tauriel,” I greeted her with a bow, my hand on my heart. “I’m pleased to see you again.”

“Kíli,” she acknowledged softly, frowning. “You are pale despite the sun. Are you sick?”

Sick, no; ravenous, yes. No amount of greens can sustain a Dwarf for long; we need red meat to keep us hale. I’d lost enough weight that I had a hard time keeping my trews up around my waist. “To me, several days have passed since you last were here.”

“Meaning what?” she asked.

I looked at her companions, then back at her, and beckoned her forward. She motioned the guards from following her as she approached. When she bent down, I whispered in her ear. “There isn’t much for a Dwarf to eat here. I’d been raiding your king’s larder, but I can’t do that while I wear his shackles, can I? So I’m left with eating the weeds, and they’re not very filling. I’ve had to sleep on the ground instead of someplace drier, too. Not that I’m displeased to see you for other reasons, of course.”

She straightened with a jerk. Her expression was affronted, but it wasn’t directed at me. She pointed at one of the guards. “Remove his shackles.”

“The king –”

“The king requires that his prisoner remains in good health while he awaits the king’s pleasure. The shackles prevent that. Remove them. Then speak to the cooks. I want a week’s double rations for the prisoner, with meat, within the quarter hour.”

Green Coat stood behind me to poke the point of his knife into the middle of my back, so I held very still with my arms outstretched while Blue Robe fished a key out of his sleeve and bent for my ankles. The smiths were to one side in whispered conversation, looking up at the beams of light bouncing off the mirrors rather than me. That meant I could smile and wink at Tauriel without anyone else noticing. She frowned, shaking her head at my irreverence, but I fancied that I saw a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. Never had my recklessness rewarded me so well, and I grinned widely, but sobered when Blue Robe moved away, taking the shackles with him. I bowed to Tauriel again.

“I am grateful. How may I serve you in return for your kindness?”

Did Tauriel’s lips curve up just a hair? Her voice remained dispassionate as she indicated the two Elves. “Marleas and Finsir are smiths. They are here to repair the mirrors as they need, and a map to guide them would be helpful.”

“You have no such guides in the records of your kingdom?” I asked innocently, but Tauriel’s face waxed full of warning, counseling caution, so I followed her lead. “No matter. I will gladly draw you a map. There is a pavilion not far from here with a large table, if you’ve brought writing materials.”

I led them to said pavilion, and began to sketch the needed map on the parchment they’d brought. Soon, a huge platter of food arrived, and in between bites of stew – my first hot food in weeks! – and ham and cheese and the most divine meat pastry, I told the smiths which fittings needed work, freely describing the work that was needed. I was gratified to see that both smiths were soon nodding, listening intently as if I were not the enemy they’d thought to meet.

“If you bring a stone mason or two, I can point them to the places that need their skills most,” I offered, after a busy few hours had passed. “I don’t claim the same level of knowledge of the plants, but if you have herbalists I can show them beds of the ones I know. Some of them are useful medicines.”

Tauriel nodded acceptance. “I’ll relay your gracious offer to the king.”

“I don’t make the offer to your king. I make it to you, because you saved my life. It is a debt of honor to a Dwarf, and I am glad to pay it.”

The smiths considered me with some surprise, and Tauriel colored again. But she was learning my sense of humor, because her lips quirked up.

“I saved your life twice, as I recall.”

I bowed, not quite smothering a wry grin. “So you did. I am doubly in your debt.”

I thought about ways she could easily require me to pay my debt, and sure enough, her cheeks colored again. But she rose from the table with the smiths.

“Then I shall return with masons and gardeners as soon as may be. Remember that time passes more slowly here compared to the rest of our realm, and be patient.”

I bowed. “I thank you for the food. It will make the wait much more bearable.”

The three Elves left me by the table, but Tauriel looked back just before they were out of sight. I put my hand over my heart and held it out to her, reminding her of what she held. She nodded quickly before she disappeared.

That night, I had a full belly and a warm bed. In my dreams, my fiery Elf warrior maid graced me uncounted times. I woke the next morning in such a pool of seed that I had to wash the bedding. Never before had laundry brought such a smile to my face.

 

* * *

 

I’d barely gotten my bedding dried and put away before Tauriel was back with the masons and gardeners she’d promised. The smiths were back, too, and before long my quiet cavern rang with busy voices. Clearly, whatever these Elves thought of the Dwarf in their midst, _Glawar-galad_ excited them. I stifled any thought of crowing because I thought being on my best behavior would make a good impression on Tauriel. But a secondary concern held my tongue, as well. If only a day or two had passed since my companions had fled King Thranduil’s realm, then they’d barely had time to reach Laketown, and it wasn’t yet Durin’s Day. Maybe the distraction of _Glawar-galad_ would mitigate the king’s anger, and keep him from making Thorin’s path to Erebor harder. So I was all proper courtesy, even to the Elves who pretended not to speak the common tongue in my presence and glared at me. The masons and smiths weren’t so bad, but even the gardeners muted their nastiness when I happened to show them a particular border of plants. I didn’t know what the plants were, but they did, and they grew quite excited.

“What plant is that?” I asked curiously.

They muttered among themselves, but it was Tauriel who answered me. “It is called _athelas_ , kingsfoil in the common tongue. It’s much valued by our healers, especially to heal poisoned wounds caused by the Orcs’ foul Morgul blades.” She gestured at the lush bed. “It is rare that it grows so thickly in one place. Our healers will be grateful to have such a large supply.”

I’d tended the plants not out of knowledge of its value, but because they smelled so good when I touched the leaves, like the brisk bite of mint. Oin would have known it well if he’d seen it. I wondered how he and the rest of my onetime companions were, and whether they were already on the path from Laketown to Erebor. But I didn’t ask. The illusion of amity between the Elves and me was hardly firm enough for that.

For several days, the Elves busied themselves. While I was glad that they’d stopped spitting at me, I had hardly a moment alone with Tauriel, and I ached in both body and mind to be with her. Finally, finally, after four days of nothing but Elves invading every inch of the cavern floor, they returned to their part of the cavern. I thought they’d all gone, and sighed my frustration into the silence. I’d soon traipse off towards my haven, which I’d been careful not to approach when Elves were near. The trysting chambers were not something they’d discovered yet, and I wanted to keep it that way. Now that they were gone, I’d have my wash in the pool, take my rations to my haven, and settle for the night. The cold water wouldn’t cool the ache in my bones for my Elf warrior, but it’d wash the dirt from my skin.

A soft step behind me almost brought me up short, but I recognized who made it, and managed not to react as I continued on to the pool. I kicked off my boots, peeled off my shirt, let my trews and smalls drop, and waded naked into the water. I kept my back to Tauriel so she wouldn’t see me laughing silently. But when I whirled to face her, I plastered alarm on my face.

“Tauriel!” I hissed, looking around me wildly and ducking low enough that my privates were under water. “By the Valar, maid, give a Dwarf some warning!”

She blushed so red that I almost ruined my joke by laughing. But I managed to look suitably flustered that she didn’t know whether to laugh or retreat.

“I – I’m sorry,” she stammered, but she didn’t look away as I expected – no, she looked long and hard at me. My tentativeness wasn’t so feigned now, because I know what I look like. Not only too tall, too dark, and without much of a beard, but no pelt on my chest, just stubble not much longer than my beard. Hair didn’t cover my back, either, but for a ridge of mane from my nape down to my shoulder blades. At least the hair on my head was properly long enough, if too smooth and wavy to hold Dwarvish plaits well. Elves had silky hair on their head, but not much elsewhere else that I’d seen, so maybe I wouldn’t look so ugly to Tauriel as I did to Dwarvish maids. “I’ll... wait by the pavilion until you’ve washed.”

“All right,” I said dubiously. As she turned, I called after her. “Toss me the soap, would you?”

She looked around her. I pointed to my heaped clothes. “It’s there.”

She groped through them until she found said article, holding it up to show me. I edged a hand out of the water, and she lobbed it. I made to rise out of the water, which sent her scampering off. I stifled laughter only with difficulty, but managed to call out my thanks in a subdued tone. Then I clapped my hands over my mouth while I laughed and laughed and laughed.

When I had control of myself, I washed and dried in seconds, and hastened to the pavilion. Tauriel sat on one of the benches, her back to me, so I came up behind her.

“Don’t turn around,” I advised her.

Her back stiffened. “Why not?”

“Because I was in such a hurry to see you that I forgot to put my shirt on.”

She turned slowly, and sure enough, my chest was bare. I sniffed noisily and grinned.

“All right, have a look. But don’t look down. I forgot to put my trews back on, too. In fact, I’m quite naked.”

Her gaze traced down far enough to see that I did in fact have all of my clothes on but my shirt. She exclaimed in annoyance, understanding that I’d teased her.

“Oh, you like a forward male, do you?” I challenged and reached for my belt. “Give me a moment, then –”

Her hand gripped mine. “You’ve had your joke. I hope you enjoyed it.”

I put my other hand over hers, and bent to kiss her quickly. “I did. This, too. Wouldn’t you like to kiss me back? Just to see what it’s like?”

She stared at me with those luminous emerald eyes, which waxed with warmth as if we shared a conspiracy. “I think I would.”

A kiss from an Elf maid is a heady thing. The cavern’s muzzy sense of time sent all thought of everything out of my head but her velvet lips on mine, her special scent that enveloped me, the coolness of her fingers against my cheek. Blessed Valar, kill me now and let me die in ecstasy...

But I didn’t die, and I didn’t embarrass myself by coming right then, though it was a close thing. When we stopped kissing, I was quick to pull on my shirt to cover what had grown under my smalls.

“Well?” I managed to whisper.

Her eyes were soft as she arranged a stand of hair out of my eyes. “It was nice.”

“It was. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And I thank you, too.”

“I’ve got a bottle of wine left, and some food. The stars will be out soon. You can see them from one of the gardens, Tauriel. Come see them with me.”

Her face fell. “I’m still on duty. I held back to thank you for how generous you’ve been. The smiths and masons see it, and even the herbalists are pleased. You didn’t have to do any of it.”

I took her hands. “I did it for you, Tauriel. That’s all. It’s my gift to you.”

She sighed. “I didn’t want to love you, Kíli. I didn’t. But I do. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

She kissed me again before she retreated. I stayed by the table, but tonight I didn’t ache for only an Elf’s kiss, an Elf’s touch, an Elf’s gentle words. Tonight I wanted the world to change so that we had more than fragments of wishes that could never come true.

I drank enough wine to fall asleep, but not enough to soothe the ache in my chest where my heart used to be.

 

* * *

 

I woke alone, groggy from dreams that had reeled from ecstasy to despair and back again, over and over again. It was late. Groaning, I climbed out of my haven, hoping the Elves hadn’t started to arrive yet. I splashed water from the pool over my face, and scrounged through my stock of food for breakfast. But no one arrived this morning, or even in the afternoon or evening. The next morning dawned just as emptily. Something had happened; probably something unpleasant. I kept a wary watch all day from the trees, keeping well away from my haven. If disaster was about to fall, I wanted to keep my retreat secret for as long as possible.

Finally, late in the afternoon, just as the sun started to wane, I spotted Tauriel running through the cavern. I slithered out of my tree and ran to her.

“What’s happened?” I asked breathlessly.

She grabbed my hands. “Hide, Kíli. Find the deepest part of the cavern, and stay hidden. Don’t let them find you. You have only a few minutes. I’ll do what I can, but you have to stay out of their hands long enough for me to do anything. Go!”

“Kiss me,” I begged.

“Kíli, go! Please go!”

I kept her hands tight. “Kiss me, first. Give me that much!”

She did, a quick but intense caress. “Now go!”

She ran back the way she’d come, so I ran in the opposite direction. But behind me, raised voices rang out, and then Tauriel’s furious shouts. Was that blade steel I heard – knives and even swords ringing out of their scabbards? I couldn’t let Tauriel face that alone. I raced after her, skidding to a stop at her back as she confronted three Elvish guardsmen who brandished knives.

“Don’t hurt her!” I shouted, sliding away from Tauriel and holding my hands wide. “If you want me, have at, but leave Tauriel out of it! Your quarrel is with me, not her!”

“No, Kíli!” She stayed between the three guardsmen and me. “No one murders a prisoner on my watch! Our laws require an appeal, and to break that law is dishonorable, unworthy of an Elf. Stand down, Lianeth! Stand down now!”

“You are the one to stand down, Tauriel. The king has ordered this, and if you defy us, you’ll suffer the same punishment as the Dwarf!”

When Tauriel’s eyes flashed in anger, it sent a thrill up my spine. She drew her knives, and crouched for the rush that would come. “I’d like to see you try, Lianeth.”

“Give me a knife!” I begged, not for the first time. “Quick! Give me a knife!”

This time, she didn’t refuse me, but spun one of her blades to me. I had just time to heft it, admiring its balance and easy feel in my hand, before the three guardsmen rushed us.

One advantage of spending the last four months on the run with Uncle Thorin is that we’d been constantly harried, chased, ambushed, and battled by Orcs, Goblins, and associated other adversaries. So I was used to an uneven fight, and ready to fight as dirtily as needed to keep my skin intact. Elves were a lot taller than I was, not used to fighting such a short opponent. I’d lost a lot of weight, but I was still hefty enough to put force behind my blows. So I ducked under the first Elf’s rush, kicked his knees out from under him, and thwacked the hilt of Tauriel’s knife hard enough against his head to knock him halfway to the Iron Hills. One down. Tauriel faced the other two, so I waded in with a howl, knocking one of the knives away long enough for her to drive an elbow into his face. Two down. The third one took one look at the two of us charging at him in full voice, and turned tail. The second one had a bloody nose, but he had drawn the first one up and was close behind his mate. We chased them to the door they’d run out of and made sure they dove back through it.

Tauriel grabbed my arm. “Stay here, Kíli. Hide. I’ll do what I can to stop this. Stay hidden for me.”

I held her arm when she would have followed the three Elves. “I don’t want to lose you, Tauriel.”

Squeezing my hand, she gave me a harried smile. “And I don’t want to lose you, either, Kíli. Hide, and wait for me.”

She shook her head when I tried to return her knife, and ran for the door. I backed away, poised to run as soon as she ducked inside –

She had just reached the door when an ominous rumble shook the cavern. Another one, harder, followed a second later. The rock groaned and flexed, and behind me chunks tumbled down from the ceiling. Beneath me, the cavern floor bucked, nearly pitching me over. Tauriel stumbled to her knees, then fell on her side when the next spasm rocked the cavern. The limestone above us screamed like a living thing, and a huge section broke loose and tumbled down, blocking the door and trapping Tauriel underneath the rubble. A final spasm, the worst of all, knocked me down and brought another shower of rock crashing down. When I staggered to my feet, the door was blocked, and Tauriel lay crumpled under the rubble.

I shouted her name, but she didn’t move. Blessed Valar, she couldn’t be dead! I wouldn’t let her be dead! I heaved the boulders and blocks off her like a mad thing, then pressed my fingers to her neck. Yes, yes, I felt a pulse, but it was fast and light. Was that normal? I took stock quickly. Her left ankle and arm were broken, but none of the rocks had hit her head. I prayed that her tough leather cuirass had protected her from internal injuries. Wait – a long red streak stained the sleeve of her right forearm above her vambrace, and her cuirass was sliced across her abdomen, though not cut through. If it’d been lower, her cuirass wouldn’t have protected her, and the slash might have gutted her. Yes, the blade had badly sliced her arm, but it hadn’t penetrated her body elsewhere.

She wasn’t conscious, so no one heard me cry out her name a second time. _No time for that, Kíli, no time! She’s bleeding, her bones are broken, and there’s no telling if more assassins are about to descend upon you. Do what you can for her now, then get both of you to your haven!_

The bed of athelas was nearby. I sprinted there and back, already stripping off my shirt. I chewed the leaves as I ran, so I had a huge wad of it ready to pack into the gash. I tore strips off my shirt with my teeth for bandages and wound them tightly to hold the athelas in place. That forced a groan from Tauriel.

“Tauriel. Tauriel!” I hissed, willing her eyes open. “Tauriel, you’re hurt, but I’m binding the wounds. Lie still!”

Her eyes fluttered and she grimaced in pain – then she was conscious, her gaze flitting wildly, looking for enemies. I put one grimy hand against her cheek.

“I’m here, Tauriel. It’s Kíli. I’m here. You have to lie still until I bind your wounds. Then I’ll take you someplace safer. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” she affirmed in a dazed voice. She lay still as I’d asked while I improvised splints for her arm and her ankle. They were stiffer than the wounds actually needed, but it wouldn’t be easy to get her into my haven, and I wanted the extra support to keep the bones from moving.

“I’m sorry to be so rough,” I apologized as I tightened the splints against her limbs ruthlessly. “I’ll make a better job if it soon. But I have to get us to a safe place first.”

“Do what you need to do,” she whispered, her eyes on me as I finished the last knot on her left arm. I mustered a smile for her as I checked the bandage on her left arm. No blood had seeped through yet, so I had time to get her away.

“I’ll carry you to the table, and you’ll sit atop it for just a moment, just until I can get you on my back so we can get away from here. Can you do that, Tauriel?”

She nodded.

“Good. Here we go, then.”

I took her up gently. She didn’t weigh much, and I carried her swiftly to one of the Elvish tables scattered throughout the cavern. Once she was out of my arms, I took two long strips from the remains of my shirt, draped one around her shoulders, and draped the other around her hips. “I’ll tie you to my back,” I explained. “Both of your arms are hurt, so you can’t hold onto me.”

She nodded again. Her skin had blanched nearly white. She swayed and her eyes fluttered, but I caught her.

“Tauriel. Look at me. Hold on for just a few minutes, just until I can get you to my haven. Look at me, _amr_ _âlim_ _ê_. Keep looking at me.”

She forced her eyes to meet mine. They were pain-struck and confused. “ _Amrâlimê_... I don’t know what that means.”

Smiling, I stroked her cheek. “Yes, you do. Now, here we go.”

I backed up to the table, pulled one strip of my shirt tightly around her hips and mine, and knotted the ends at my belly. I pulled the other around her ribs and my chest, and knotted that under my arms. Finally, I grasped her legs under my arms and lifted her off the table. I hadn’t heard any sound of pursuit since the rocks had fallen, so I risked a direct path across the cavern to my haven.

“Where are we going?” Tauriel whispered in my ear.

“I haven’t revealed all the treasures to be found here,” I said with a smile in my words, hoping my tone would keep her calm. I knew nothing about Elvish medicine, so I didn’t know if they went into shock when they were hurt, or wilted right away like a parched flower in the sun, or something else entirely. I chose to react as Dwalin had taught me, as if I dealt with Dwarvish wounds. We do go into shock, but not immediately after injury – we have a few minutes to get ourselves out of a fix before blood loss takes its toll. Quiet and warmth as well as good bandages and splints are the standard treatment, to be applied as quickly as possible. So I held Tauriel close, and ran.

When I got to the haven, I stooped for a hefty tree limb before I clambered up. “What are you doing?” Tauriel whispered. “Did you put up a flet?”

“A what?”

“A flet. A tree platform.”

“No. This is just my front porch, you might say. But I have to get us through the front door, which takes some doing.”

I managed to poke the door ajar with the limb, and tossed it aside. I was ready to jump inside.

“This will likely hurt. I’ll be as careful as I can. So forgive me ahead of time. Now brace yourself, and keep your knees up, or they’ll hit the stone floor when I jump inside.”

“When you jump inside wha – oh!”

I took a running jog over the tree branch and launched us forward, my arm outstretched to push the door in as we crashed through and into the chamber beyond. I landed awkwardly because I tried to shield Tauriel from the impact, but I kept my feet. Still, our landing was jarring enough that Tauriel cried out. I unknotted the rags around us, got her in my arms before she crumpled to the floor, and laid her on the bed.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I told her, helping her to arranged her splinted limbs as comfortably as I could. “That’s the worst of it, Tauriel, I promise. You can rest now. Just lie still. Here, let me light the lamp.”

I scrambled to do just that, and as soon as the flame brightened, I shoved the door shut with relief. We were hidden now, until someone with enough wits to look at the cavern stone wandered by.

“Kíli.”

I sat by Tauriel’s side. “I’m here. We’re safe for the moment.”

She accepted that with a squeeze of my hand. “How badly am I hurt?”

“Your right arm is slashed above the elbow, I expect from one of the Elves who attacked us. I’ve packed it with athelas and bound it. Your left arm and left ankle were broken when the rocks fell. Do you hurt anywhere else?”

She shook her head, but broke off the gesture with a wince.

“Yes, you do; you don’t have to be a Dwarf about it. I’m not a bad field medic, you know. I’ve been trained by the best.”

“Who’s that?” she tried to smile.

I grinned. “Master Dwalin. The surly, bald Dwarf in our party with all the tattoos. A fiercer Dwarf you’ll never meet, but he’s the one to have your back in a fight, and the one to put you back together afterwards. Here, let me unfasten your cuirass, _amrâlimê_. You’ll breathe easier for it.”

I eased her cuirass, vambraces, and greaves from her. As I laid them aside, I couldn’t help but admire the beautiful workmanship that turned a warrior’s protection into graceful art. She let me coax her out of her boots, coat, and tunic so I could better reset her splints. The painful part came when I checked her sliced arm.

“It needs stitching. I’ve got needle and thread here somewhere...”

“Where are we?” Tauriel asked as I rummaged. I came up with the needed items in one hand and the lamp in the other. I put the lamp beside her on the bed and sat down.

“I call it my haven. Set your teeth; this’ll sting a bit.” I dabbed a little wine over the wound to clean it, then bent to my stitching. If I kept talking, maybe I’d distract Tauriel from the pain. Dwalin would have made a faster job of it, but he wouldn’t have been as concerned as I about leaving as small a scar as possible. To him, a scar was a mark of pride. On Tauriel’s beautiful body, it would be a tragedy. “I found this room the first day I was here. My first day, not yours, of course. My stone sense spoke to me when I studied an odd part of the cavern wall. So I poked around and found a lot of these chambers. The only way for me to get in and out of them is to find one near a convenient tree, so I holed up in the one that had the most accommodating tree in its front yard. There, it’s done. I’ll repack it with the _athelas_ , and wrap it.”

“Thank you,” she breathed.

“Not to worry. Now, what else do I need to tend?”

We found a few scrapes and bruises but, thankfully, nothing else. She started to shiver, so I wrapped a couple of soft sheets and blankets around her.

“You’re going into shock, Tauriel. At least I think you are. I don’t know how Elves react when they’re hurt. If you were a Dwarf, you’d need to lie still and stay warm.”

“Yes.” Her voice was faint. “True... for my people too.”

I tucked another blanket over her. “I’ve got lots of these, and it stays warm in here at night. Rest now.”

Her hand strayed out and touched my chest. It was just a feather’s stroke against my skin, but it froze me in place as nothing else could. “What did you call me?”

“ _Amrâlimê_.”

Her eyes closed, and her smile, while faint, was sweet as she fell asleep. I took her hand and cradled it in mine, careful not to disturb her bandages. I listened as her breathing quieted, then quieted still more, until I couldn’t hear it. Her fingers grew cold. Blessed Valar, was she dying?

I piled every blanket and coverlet I had over her, but still she shivered. What else did I have to warm her? I could build a fire, and damn the Elves who might notice. I could sneak back into the larder for more blankets. I could –

_Stop dithering, Kíli. You have everything you need to keep her warm._

True enough. I had my Dwarvish body heat, which was so much warmer than an Elf’s. She’d probably reached out to touch me because I still radiated warmth after the exertion of our fight and our retreat here. I could keep her warm.

I stripped off my boots and trews, crawled into bed, and wrapped my arms around her. My body didn’t know how to react, and my emotions careened between arousal and terror. I wanted her. I feared for her life.

I shut my eyes and kept my thoughts on how badly Tauriel was injured. She needed my body heat, not my passion. Eventually, Tauriel stopped shivering, and I calmed down enough to smile ruefully in the dark.

This wasn’t how I’d expected to spend my first night in bed with a maid.

 

* * *

 

I woke slowly, muzzily aware of another body in bed beside me. It huddled hard against me. Typical Fíli. My brother never missed a chance to steal the blankets, or to take his half of the pallet out of the middle. I muttered a sleepy epithet and tried to blow his hair out of my eyes –

This hair was red, not blond, and as straight and as silky as an Elf’s. Oh, and oh, it _was_ an Elf’s hair – by all the Valar, what had I gotten myself into this time –

Tauriel moaned beside me, and I came awake in a rush. This wasn’t some poor caravan pallet I shared with my brother because the damned merchants we guarded were too stingy to provide separate accommodations. This was Tauriel, injured Tauriel, my Tauriel –

I sat up in a rush. Tauriel, blessedly, still slept beside me. I took a steadying breath and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I eased away from her, put on my trews and boots, found the water ewer, and cracked the door to my haven. Outside, the cavern was sunlit and quiet. I looked back at Tauriel to make sure she still slept, then jumped out, leaving the door ajar. I ducked through the brush to relieve myself, then risked a detour to the _athelas_ border to grab another handful of leaves, then ran to the stream for a quick wash and fresh water. I stuffed the leaves into the ewer, tucked the ewer under my arm, and hurried back to the haven to slither up the tree and jump back inside in short order.

Tauriel was almost aware, but she had started to shiver again. At the noise of my return, she jerked fully awake, and her eyes flashed, perhaps in fear, perhaps in fever.

“It’s me, Tauriel. It’s Kíli. Don’t be afraid.”

“Kíli,” she murmured, trying to sit up, but between her tremors and her splints, she didn’t get far. I put down the ewer and hurried to her.

“Lie still, Tauriel. You’ve been hurt. Don’t disturb your wounds.”

“I’m cold, Kíli. Cold.”

“I know.” I yanked off my boots and my trews again and crawled in beside her. “I’ll have you warm in a moment.”

Indeed, her shaking soon stilled, and she fell back into a half stupor. I stroked her hair, marveling at its fineness, its luster, its beautiful color. I couldn’t stop myself from kissing her ear.

“I’m sorry to have to ask, Tauriel. I don’t know what you need to heal other than warmth. Do you need food? Water?”

“A little water,” she murmured sleepily. “Warmth. It may seem that I’m asleep, so deeply that it can look like death. But it’s deep so that I heal quickly.”

I kissed her ear again. “I have to get up for the water. And I have to eat so I can keep you warm. I’ll be quick.”

She nodded, snuggling the blankets close. I got up to put the ewer and a pair of goblets to hand, then I rooted through my stores for a slab of ham, a meat pie, and a thick wedge of cheese. They went on a plate on the bed. This took little time, but Tauriel was already shivering before I got back under the blankets. I propped cushions against the back of the bed, and eased her against my chest. I held one of the goblets to her lips.

“Here, _amrâlimê_. Clean water. It has a little _athelas_ in it. Will that help?”

Nodding, she managed a few sips. “Enough.”

I finished off the remains of the water. The fresh tang of the athelas sent warmth through me, which was cheering. Surely it would help Tauriel’s body to rally. She snuggled against me as best her bandages and splints allowed, sighing as she warmed.

“Are all Dwarves this warm, or only you?” She sounded as if she talked in her sleep.

I grinned and stroked her hair. “The blood of any Dwarf runs much warmer than an Elf’s does. But I think that holding you in my arms has raised mine a bit more than normal.”

She hummed, and fell back into her deep sleep. As her body relaxed, I thought about how Tauriel drove more than my temperature to the heights. But that only encouraged my cock to misbehave, so I reached out for the plate of food I’d put by. I concentrated on the food and considered what my best plan of defense was while Tauriel healed. What would I do when her angry kinsmen came for my hide? And what had made them want it? I hoped Tauriel would be able to tell me once her body didn’t demand all of her concentration.

A fully belly and a warm bed didn’t bring me any answers or plans, but they did lull me back to sleep. Over the next day or so, I got up occasionally to deal with my body’s needs and to replenish our water, but the rest of the time I was Tauriel’s furnace. What a situation – to spend three days in bed with the maid who drove me mad, without a single chance to act on it. The thought of taking advantage of her as she slept disgusted me – I wanted her healthy, as eager as I, as able to respond as I. So I held her, stroked her hair, kissed her ear, and nothing more.

I kept careful watch on her bandaged arm and splinted limbs, but they healed without further help from me. I knew little about Elves other than the frequently retold tales of their hauteur, their refusal to aid Erebor against the firedrake, their disinterest in the world outside their realms. But Lord Elrond and his folk had extended courtesy to Thorin’s companions, me among them, so Elves were no more of one mind than Dwarves were. Oin had once said that disease and age had no effect on them. If that were true, then perhaps broken bones and knife wounds didn’t sour for Elves the way they did too often for other races. Whatever the case, Tauriel’s wounds faded, and her sleep seemed less deep. Again I drifted off beside her, comforted by her improvement.

 

* * *

 

Waking wasn’t as peaceful as falling asleep this time. A foot caught my hip and almost kicked me out of bed. Squawking, I flailed to keep from crashing on my head, and I would have succeeded if a splinted arm hadn’t rammed into my shoulder like a spring-crazed goat. I tumbled to the floor in a heap, yelping when my head hit the stone.

“Bloody stars, what did you do that for?” I barked, rubbing my head and looking over the edge of the sleeping pad. Tauriel was sitting up like an avenging spirit, which sent me skittering away from the bed fast enough. When I had my back to the wall, I glared at her. “You must feel better if you’ve got the spirit to clout me out of bed. I hope you do feel better, though I can’t say I like the way you show it.”

“What am I doing in a _caimasan_ _veste_ , and why are you here with me?” she demanded.

“A what?”

“Here! This is a marriage chamber! A place for partnering!”

Oh, and oh, I’d guessed right about the nature of these chambers, then, and now I was about to catch fire for it. “This is just the place I found to hide, Tauriel, that’s all! When you were hurt, I brought you here to keep you safe!”

“You were in bed with me! Where are the rest of my clothes? What were you doing?”

I looked a reproach at her. “I was sleeping. So were you, until you decided to kick me.”

“Elves don’t sleep!”

“Everybody sleeps!”

“ _Elves_ don’t!” She smacked the bed and glared at me. “We are not Dwarves or Men or anyone else! We are the Eldar, and we take our rest from the starlight!”

“How was I supposed to know that? I’ve never met a bloody Elf before, have I, so why would I think you don’t do something the way every other race does?”

She exclaimed in exasperation again and pulled the blankets up around herself.

“You _did_ sleep, Tauriel, or at least that’s what I thought you did,” I said with less heat. “You were injured; do you remember? Quite badly, as a matter of fact, and you told me that you needed to stay warm while you healed. So when all my blankets didn’t warm you enough, I held you for three days. And did nothing else.”

Tauriel’s expression wavered from affront to confusion, then to dawning awareness, and finally to embarrassment. She looked at her bandages and splints as if for the first time, then back at me. Her face fell.

“I remember. I’m sorry, Kíli. I am.”

I harrumphed. “You ought to be. I landed on my head. I’ve got a knot the size of an egg on the back of it.”

“I’m very sorry.”

I harrumphed again. “Well. How are you? Awake for just the moment, soon to go back into something that looks like sleep but isn’t, or ready for breakfast?”

“I won’t fall back into the deep healing. I’m still weak, but much better.”

I harrumphed a third time. “If that’s what you call weak, then I shudder to think what you’ll do to me when you’re fully healed.”

She looked so contrite that I stopped teasing her. I got up, sat beside her, and stroked her hair. “I’m glad you’re much better. I’ve worried myself to a thread about you for three days.”

She smiled. “I remember. You were as warm as dragon fire.”

I refused to think about why my body had been at such a fever heat. “We... ought to check your wounds.”

She nodded agreement, so I loosened the splint on her ankle first, and felt the bones gently. Her foot rotated easily, though she said it was still sore and felt weak. I left the splint off, but used one of the last bits of my shirt to bind it firmly. Her left arm seemed equally healed, so a bit more of my shirt replaced that splint. Finally, the deep slash in her right arm was still red and raw, but she’d healed it in three days as much as a Dwarf might heal a similar wound in a month. I took out the stitches, bathed it in the athelas infusion before I wrapped it, and then we both drank a gobletful of what was left. I felt much better afterwards, but Tauriel lay quietly amid the blankets.

“Are you hungry? There’s quite a bit here.” I paused. “What do Elves eat for breakfast, anyway?”

She chuckled. “You don’t know what Elves eat for breakfast, either?”

“No idea,” I shrugged without embarrassment. “The Elves in Rivendell never ate much beyond a few sprigs of leaf and a dainty cake or two at any meal I saw, though their wine was quite nice. A Dwarf starves on those rations. My mother claimed that I’d eat a whole cow for breakfast if she’d let me. Which she didn’t.”

“You’ve been to Rivendell?” she asked, impressed despite herself.

I nodded. “A beautiful place. Ethereal. Not quite of this world. I would have liked to stay longer. Not bad hosts, those Rivendell Elves. Very different from Woodland Elves, who throw a sleeping Dwarf out of his own bed of a morning. So, green leaves, or ham and cheese?”

“I told you I was sorry,” she said in exasperation.

“I’ll forgive you if you let me back under the covers. It’s cold out here.”

She frowned. “No, it isn’t. Not for a hot-blooded Dwarf.”

“How do you think I stay so warm? I like lots of blankets, too.”

She regarded me so narrowly that I picked up the plate holding the remains of last night’s supper. “I’ll bring breakfast with me.”

She looked away, then half looked back. She smiled reluctantly, and slid over a bit. I set the plate in the middle of the bed and got back under the blankets, pointedly keeping my distance. I took a meat pie and set to, leaving her to pick through the leaves. Between bites of greenery, she had a little cheese, a little ham, and a roll, but that was all. I polished off the rest of the cheese and ham with gusto, then a pair of rolls, and chased it down with another goblet of water.

“Much better. I’m ready to be your furnace for another bit now. Are you done with breakfast?”

She nodded, so I set the platter on the table by the bed. When I turned back to her, Tauriel regarded me with the strangest light in her eyes.

“What is it, Tauriel? Do your wounds hurt? Is something not right?”

“You saved my life.”

“Just the once. You’re still one ahead of me when it comes to saving lives.” I touched her hand with one finger. “I wasn’t sure I had until you woke this morning. Your healing sleep... I’ve never seen anything like it. Terrifying, because you were so still and pale. I’m not even sure that I had much to do with healing you, to be honest. You did most of it yourself.”

She shook her head. “You dug me out of the rubble, and you bandaged my wounds. If you hadn’t straightened my bones, they might well have healed crooked. Or I might have bled to death. Then you watched over me, and kept me warm. What you did was no small thing.”

I nodded acceptance, smiling. Then I had to look away. Now that she was mending, it was uncomfortable to sit beside her without wanting to do more than sit.

“What’s wrong, Kíli?”

I chuckled sheepishly. “Nothing. It’s a blessed thing to just sit next to you. You’re very beautiful, like embers in a fire...”

Tauriel hummed. “Ah.”

There was such a wealth of meaning in that one syllable that I no longer knew where I stood with her. I fell back on bravado.

“How do Elves manage it?” I asked the ceiling. “They get into a knife fight, they tumble under rock falls, they spend three days unconscious to heal their wounds, and they come out of it still looking like a vision from the Valar.”

Tauriel chuckled. “Ours is a colder elegance, I’m told. I have to agree, now that I’ve met a Dwarf. You’re so fiercely alive, as if every day is a gift to be savored to its fullest.”

“Each day _is_ a gift,” I agreed. “Elves have so many of them; perhaps it’s easier to let them slip through your fingers. A Dwarf... I have perhaps three hundred years’ worth of them. Far fewer.”

Tauriel considered that for a long moment. “Today is one I won’t let slip through my fingers.”

She slid close with a sigh, settling against my chest as she had for the past three days. I arranged myself around her, but there was a lump in my throat because I didn’t want to be only a furnace to warm her cool body. I wanted her hands to touch me, I wanted her lips on mine, I wanted –

Oh, and oh, and oh, her hand _was_ on my chest, stroking my ribs. I swallowed, then again. I couldn’t think straight while she did that. I couldn’t. Despite every impulse not to, I caught her hand in mine, stilling it.

“Kíli?”

“You... have to stop that. I can’t bear it.”

“Does it hurt?”

“That depends on what you mean by ‘hurt’.”

“Hurt means painful, yes?”

“What you’re doing isn’t painful. In fact, it feels very good. But that’s what’s painful, because I –”

She took her hand out of mine, and went back to stroking my ribs.

“Tauriel, don’t!” I grabbed her hand.

She freed it again, and went back to stroking my ribs.

“Wait – are... are you seducing me?”

A sigh. Was it exasperated? “I am _trying_ to, yes.”

Oh, most blessed Valar... “Oh.” I shut my eyes against the heat flooding every part of my body. “Oh.”

I held still while her touch robbed me of restraint, reason, and intelligence. What possessed me, then, to grab her hand yet again, and slide away from her?

“Tauriel, don’t do this to me unless you mean it. It’s hard enough to love you as it is. If you just want to see whether your recovery is complete, don’t.”

She sat up to look at me with those deep emerald eyes. “It’s hard to love you, too. I didn’t want to, because an Elf loves but once. But I do love you, Kíli, and I want whatever you and I can give each other, for as long as we’re able to. Not just today, _a'maelamin_.”

I swallowed. “I don’t know what that means.”

She wasn’t put off. “Yes, you do.”

“Yes.” I took a deep breath. “I do. I’m honored. I’m also... Oh, Valar, I have a terrible confession to make. I’ve never been with a maid, Tauriel. Like this. I know what to do, but not what to do. I want you so badly that I can’t think, but you’re still recovering, and I don’t want to hurt you, and –”

Her fingers on my lips stilled my babbling. “I haven’t been with anyone, either, Kíli. I know what to do, but not what to do, too. So we’ll have to help each other discover our own ways to do this.”

She took my hand and kissed the back of it. When her fingers brushed my chest, and I didn’t think before I kissed her lips. That was all we needed. After that, instinct and love and delight took over, and how many hours went by was anyone’s guess. We more than made up for the three days we’d spent in an Elvish marriage chamber so chastely. I threw the rest of the world away and didn’t want it back.

For two days, the wide world was gone but for the two of us. No more was I a too tall, too dark, too unbearded Dwarf too ugly for a maid to look at, nor was she a remote Elvish captain of the guards too fierce for cooler Elf males. I was the _a’maelamin_ of an Elf maid who said the Valar had made me to please her, not a lot of blind Dwarf maids. She was the _amrâlimê_ of a romantic Dwarf entranced by the fire in her hair and eyes and knives, who loved her warrior spirit, whose desire for her flamed bright every time she but looked at him. What wouldn’t I give for those two days to last forever?

But... while we indulged our passion, forged our bond, sealed our doom, the wide world marched on. We ran out of food, too. So we were forced to let one another go long enough to consider, however reluctantly, what to do next.

“Tell me what happened to make King Thranduil want me dead,” I said as we dressed.

Tauriel sighed. “He found out who you are, Kíli.”

“Who I am?” I repeated. “I’m a Dwarf. Same as I was when I got here.”

“Not what. Who. You’re Thorin Oakenshield’s sister’s son. Heir to the throne of Erebor. When the king heard that, he was furious.”

I buckled my boot, and watched her fasten her coat. “Fíli’s the heir, not me. I’m just the second son of my uncle’s sister, which makes me nobody, which is the way I like it. I’ve no interest in being the king of anything. Except of your heart.”

She cast me a quick smile, but sobered quickly. “That doesn’t matter to King Thranduil. He thought it was a great joke, to have a Dwarf brought low enough to serve him as a gardener, stripped of honor and weapons and indebted to a lowly captain of his guards.”

I shrugged. “So? I didn’t care what he thought when I worked on the mirrors and gardens, and I don’t care now. You know why I did it, and who I did it for, and that’s all I care about.”

“King Thranduil has lived long and is steeped in the subtleties of rule –”

I snorted. “He’s an arrogant snot. That’s what I thought the first time I saw him, and he’s done nothing to make me change my opinion. So is his son, for that matter.”

“Kíli.” She laid a calming hand on my shoulder. “King Thranduil has many things to weigh for his people, more than what you or I think –”

“He’s shut himself away in his bolt hole, and to hell with what happens to the rest of the world,” I growled. “I understand why Thorin hates him so much, though I grant you that I don’t know what your king or anyone else could have done to dispatch the firedrake sixty years ago. But he turned our people away after, and they’ve wandered homeless since while King Thranduil broods down here. He won’t even clear the vermin that infest the woods above him. How is that wise?”

Again she laid her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kíli. I am sorry for your people. But the king is not as heartless as you think he is. Part of the reason he shut us away down here is because he’s lost much of his life, too, and he doesn’t want to lose any more.”

I swallowed my indignation, for what could he have lost that compared to what my people had? I had to work to keep an even tone. “What did he lose?”

“I told you that Elves love but once. He loved his wife, Legolas’ mother, beyond telling. She was lost in at Gundebad in the fight against the forces of Angmar. Two-thirds of our forces were lost, as well, including the king’s father. That’s how Thranduil became king, because of the death of his father. So he, as well as his son, knows more about losing a kingdom and a love than you think.”

I conceded with a kiss. “You’re right. I have a hot temper, sometimes.”

She kissed me back. “The king, the prince, your uncle, and you all have reason for your tempers. But I’ve found that it’s usually wise to hold one’s temper in check so as to avoid ramifications that cause great distress later.”

I grinned. “I can’t say I like the king getting angry enough to want me dead. But I still don’t understand why he does. It’s just a garden. It’s not like I’ve plotted treason, or assassination.”

She sighed again. “I know that. Perhaps he knows that. But I’m sure he spent many hours here long ago when his wife still lived. He never returned after her death. He didn’t deny use of it once he abandoned it, but it fell into disuse all the same. I think the remembrance of the time he spent here with her is bitter, and it wasn’t easy to tolerate a Dwarf’s hand on it. I think he was willing to allow it as long as he could cast it as an insult to your people. When he found out who you are, though... if somehow, against all odds, your uncle reclaims Erebor, and his sister’s youngest son has done the Sindar and Nandor of the Woodland Realm a service, then that puts King Thranduil in Thorin’s debt. The king does not like the thought of that at all. Your uncle... was... insulting when he and the king spoke.”

I laughed. “That’s putting it mildly, I’d say. Thorin can be as insufferable as your king, and both of them would’ve tried to outdo the other in arrogance. So what do we do now?”

“Only a few minutes have passed outside the cavern since I was wounded,” Tauriel replied, sheathing her knives. “We have a little time to assess the damage to the cavern, and whether I can open one of the doors to the outside. I think that’s our best chance to get out.”

“And then?”

She looked away. “I’m sure to be banished for refusing the King’s order, though our law is on my side. Not even the king is supposed to flaunt it, but he won’t like being told that. How will your people react if you rejoin them, and I am with you?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The woods are likely crawling with Orcs, and so are the lands to the west. East to Laketown is likely the safest path, and from there we can see.”

She nodded. Her hand strayed to my nape, caressing the ridge of hair that traced down to my shoulder blades. I hummed in enjoyment. “Stop. Or I’ll undress you.”

“Then cover yourself, before sight of you drives me to undress you. Oh... your shirt. You made bandages for me out of your shirt. You don’t have anything else to wear.”

“Yes, I do.” I rummaged in a corner. “That’s why I had needle and thread to stitch your arm. I pilfered a shirt and coat from your larder, but they needed a bit of taking up here and there so I didn’t look like a bairn in a nightgown.” I held up the tunic I’d shortened at hem and sleeves. It was blue, and much softer than what I’d torn up for bandages. I pulled it over my head, belted it, and it made a serviceable tunic.

“Very elegant, for a Dwarf,” she teased with a grin. “And the coat?”

I pulled on a sueded thing. The leather was sensuously supple, as elegantly sewn and embroidered as any Elvish garment, and I’d hated to trim it short. I’d used the leftovers to make a new belt, as my old one was too big to hold my trews up. This was such a dark grey as to be nearly black, and I admit I’d chosen that over a gaudier red thing because the dark color suited me better. I’d be better camouflaged in the woods, too, if I ever got there.

“Very elegant, indeed. No, not quite right. You’ve lost the pin that keeps your hair out of your eyes. You can’t go into battle that way. I’ll braid it for you.”

“Dwarvish braids never hold in my hair.”

She turned me around. “An Elvish one will. Just a twist here, and there...”

It was more sensual to have an Elf maid dress my hair than it had any right to be, and I was humming in enjoyment before she was finished. She finished it off with a bit of thread, and pressed a kiss on my ear. “Now. You are properly elegant.”

My snort was self-conscious. “I’d trade elegance for a good bow and a quiver of arrows, and a blade or two.”

“Those, I can’t give you. I have only my knives.”

“Something will turn up,” I said firmly. “I’ve packed the last of the food, and we can take a last drink at the stream.”

She rose. “Let’s hunt for a door.”

She looked around once at our haven, smiled at me, and cracked the door. The cavern was still empty but for us, so she leaped out with me close behind.

 

* * *

 

We made our way stealthily around the cavern. It was no more or less silent than it had been when I’d first fallen into it, but the urgency of escape had turned the silence into something more sinister. Tauriel did most of the searching, given that her Elf senses would guide her to any doors, and I acted the rear guard, keeping my attention on the tangle of brush around us. She found three such doors, but all of them had been sealed past her ability to open them. I matched her breathed curse with my own as we considered our options.

“I don’t understand this,” she murmured, looking around us apprehensively. “I should be able to open them. Something has happened to the cavern itself that has broken the Elvish spells on the doors.”

I considered the stone. “It’s shifted. Can your king command such forces?” She shook her head. “Perhaps the tremors that caused the rock fall were the earth’s doing, then.”

“Such tremors are rare, but they do happen,” Tauriel allowed.

“So... we can’t get out by the waterfall, and we can’t get out through the doors.” I considered the cavern. “Let’s risk a look at the door where you were wounded. Maybe the rock fall opened a way outside.”

“Good,” Tauriel’s eyes brightened, so we cautiously circled back to that door. When we drew close to the rubble that blocked it, we heard the pounding of hammers and picks on the Elves’ side. Our time was short, then. Our eyes met, and Tauriel’s lips thinned. “Keep watch, Kíli. I’m lighter than you, and will disturb the rocks less.”

She put her knives in my hands, and climbed over the rocks and up atop the door. A jutting ledge gave her a place to stand, and crevices about it gave her a path up. Some twenty feet above my head, she looked down.

“There is a fissure. I can see the sun. But it’s very narrow.”

“Let me look. Maybe I can widen it.”

She came down as gracefully as a cat. I clambered up with less grace, but more strength. Sure enough, there was a small fissure big enough for me to get my hand in it. I probed gently, letting my stone sense tell me what there was to know. The fissure extended further down, invisible to the eye, but not to my stone sense. I maneuvered for the right leverage, and pried a big chunk of limestone free.

“Watch out,” I called softly, and when Tauriel backed out of the way I let the chunk drop. Another soon followed. Now I could lean against the rock and put more force behind my efforts. I freed several more pieces, until I could get my shoulders through to the outside. I stuck my head out cautiously. It was still early morning, much colder than inside the cavern. The forest was quiet around me, so I pulled my head back inside.

“Come up,” I beckoned, and pulled myself outside as Tauriel swarmed after me. I pulled her through to stand on the rock beside me. “Do you know where we are?”

She looked around us and pointed towards the sun. “Yes. Laketown is that way. We need to move quietly and quickly. There are likely Orcs about.”

“Lead on,” I beckoned, and fell in behind her. While I was glad to be back in the world, I was sorry to leave our haven behind. It would likely be a long time before we had such ease again.

Tauriel led me quietly and swiftly down the limestone slope and into the forest below. The forest air was still the cloying, rotting miasma I recalled, but with her to lead me on the paths, we traveled quickly to cleaner areas. We ran at a trot that ate the miles quickly, and the Lonely Mountain drew noticeably closer within a few hours.

A faint sound drew me to a stop. “Tauriel,” I murmured, and pointed left when she looked back at me. She didn’t speak, but pointed left and slightly behind our current position. I went that way as she went slightly ahead, intending to bracket whatever we heard between us. But she quickly sprinted ahead, waving me after her. Below us lay the body of an Elf. An Orc arrow had run him through, and he was some hours cold. The sound we’d heard had been the step of his horse that still hovered near the body.

“Miriallan,” Tauriel breathed, naming the dead Elf. She swallowed hard and whispered a prayer over the body. “Orcs passed this way just before sunrise. At least we can take his horse, and some of his armor might fit you.”

She busied herself in shortening the stirrups of the Elven steed while I took the dead Elf’s vambraces and greaves. He wore a short mantle of leaf mail that covered his shoulders and upper chest, which I also took.

“Help me with this,” I asked, and Tauriel buckled the leaf mail under one arm while I did the other. “I thank you, Miriallan,” I said, sketching a bow to the dead Elf, my hand on my heart, which drew Tauriel’s quick look. “Dwarvish courtesy. It’s bad luck to plunder the dead, so when need calls for a warrior to take the weapons of the dead, you offer thanks for the gift.”

Tauriel nodded understanding. “I thank you for your courtesy.”

I settled the leaf mail on my shoulders. I’m shorter than an Elf, of course, but my shoulders are as broad, so the mantle was a good fit, beautifully constructed, and light to bear. I bent for the Elf’s bow, admiring its elegant curves and lightness before I buckled it and its quiver over my coat. His two swords, each an elegant sweep of steel, were still whole, so I held one out to Tauriel. “I’ll take the shorter one. You take this one.”

She buckled it on quickly. “We must get out of the forest and around the lake quickly, Kíli. Orcs this close are an ill omen. Can you ride?”

“A pony, yes. This one’s a bit big, but I can ride pillion behind you.”

She jumped lightly into the saddle, and pulled me up behind her. “Are you settled?”

I squeezed close behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. “Yes.”

At her urgent word, the horse was off.

Elven steeds are marvelous beasts. They may look like fine tall horses, and so they are. But their endurance is almost not to be believed. We raced along at a blinding pace; when I ventured a look around Tauriel, the trees flew by us faster than I could focus on them, and the wind of our passing drowned out all other sound. I don’t know how Tauriel heard anything else, but she drew the horse to an abrupt stop. Only when our mount was still did I hear the march of heavy feet.

We tethered the horse and skulked atop the ridge to peer over the other side. A huge column of Orcs in full battle dress marched towards the lake. Leading the column was an immense Orc, half again as large as those he led, and pale, almost white. His head was misshapen, bound with the rusted metal strips that served the Orcs to repair battle injuries. He was a terrifying sight. We slipped away and raced for our horse.

“Orcs from Gundebad,” she said as I held on. “Whether they march on Laketown or Erebor, we need to warn the people.”

“Go!” I agreed, and off we raced.

If I thought I’d already seen how fast an Elvish horse could run, I was quickly disabused. He raced across the land so fast that his hooves couldn’t have touched the ground. We flew southeast, and after some miles heard an approaching rider. Tauriel pulled our steed up short, for it was another Elvish horse whose path intersected ours, a white horse bearing a blond Elf.

“What is _that_ doing here?” Legolas spat, glaring at me, “and why is he wearing Elvish armor?”

“There’s no time to explain, Legolas!” Tauriel cried. “Orcs are pouring out of Gundebad, marching on Laketown and Erebor. We’re riding there to warn them!”

Legolas’ sneer vanished. He reined his snorting horse and rode closer to us. “Gundebad? The king and our troops sit outside Erebor. Do you not know this?”

“No, she doesn’t know this,” I growled. “Your father’s men attacked her, and she was badly injured in a rock fall –”

“Rock fall?” Legolas repeated. I rolled my eyes. Did he have to repeat everything that was said to him? “The entire kingdom shook, and was no doing of the king’s. It was the dragon’s doing when he rose out of Erebor. Smaug burned Laketown before Bard shot him out of the sky. He is fallen, and your uncle has proclaimed himself king under the mountain, Dwarf! He will not treat with Bard, or my father, and Dwarves from the Iron Hills have come to support his claim. We are going to war!”

“They cannot fight!” both Tauriel and I protested.

“The Orcs are coming,” I went on. “Go look for yourself, if you don’t believe us, and if you want to waste precious time. A huge host of them marches closer with every moment we spend arguing!”

“Bolg is at the head of the army, Legolas,” Tauriel said.

“The son of the white Orc?” Legolas confirmed, paling, and Tauriel nodded.

“We have to unite all our forces if we want to withstand them,” Tauriel pleaded.

“We do,” Legolas agreed, still eyeing me with displeasure. “Because more than one army of Orcs approaches. Azog leads a second army.”

“Then we have to go!” I hissed. “Or all of our people will die because we sat here arguing!”

Legolas spared us more repetitions. He wheeled his horse and sped off with us in close pursuit.

The speed of an Elvish horse is marvelous, but for a Dwarf astride one, a better one is its smooth gait. That’s the only thing that kept me behind Tauriel, because my legs weren’t long enough to grip securely. I held on to her tightly, wishing I had thought to attach myself to the saddle like so much baggage, because that’s all I was.

Quicker than I expected, we skirted the lakeshore. Azog’s forces had erupted out of vast caverns eaten out of the rocks by immense rock worms – creatures I had never seen before and had thought to be nothing but stories to scare Dwarf bairns. The Iron Hill Dwarves had drawn their line before the approaching horde. Just as the Orcs reached the line, waves of tall Elvish warriors vaulted over the Dwarves and plunged into the fray. Behind them, the men of Laketown charged forward with a roar. So sense had prevailed for now, with Elves, Dwarves, and Men uniting against Goblins and Orcs.

Ahead of us, Legolas raced for his father, clearly visible riding an immense elk with antlers fully twenty feet wide. Tauriel pulled up, torn about whether she should approach or not. I slid off the horse.

“Go, Tauriel!” I shouted over the noise. “Warn King Thranduil. I’ll tell my people!”

Her eyes blazed. “I don’t want to lose you, Kíli!”

“I won’t lose you, _amrâlimê_! I’ll find you once I’ve told my people!” I dug in a pocket, pulled out my mother’s rune stone, and ran up to her. I pressed it in her hand. “Keep this as a promise!”

Then I turned and ran, because if I’d hesitated, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to leave her.

“ _A’maelamin_!” she shouted after me, and my heart tried to leap through my chest. I savored that for a moment, then turned my attention to the battle.

I saw the general of the Iron Hills Dwarves ahead, mounted on a formidable battle boar and laying about with his axes. The battlefield was chaotic, and I found an unending array of Goblins and Orcs for my Elvish blade. It wasn’t bulky and angular like a proper Dwarvish weapon, but it had a sleek grace and an easy balance that made it lethal in my hands. It was a joy to wield as I made steady progress towards the Dwarves’ commander. Was this Dain? Once I heard his voice, I knew it was. Dain’s habit of providing an unending stream of obscenity-laced commentary as he cleaved his enemies was well known, and he was in full voice today. I expect that he hadn’t enjoyed himself so much in years. When one of those inexplicable battlefield lulls lessened the stream of Orcs around him, I ran up.

“Dain! Sir! Be warned! A second army of Orcs is on its way. They’re marching out of Mount Gundebad, and they’ll be here in an hour or less!”

“What?” Dain looked around, searching for the source of my words, then quickly skewered me with his sharp brown eyes. “Who are you?”

“Kíli, Thorin’s sister’s youngest son,” I said breathlessly. “I saw the Orc army, sir. They’ll be here soon.”

He eyes me up and down, a strange a combination of Dwarf clad in Elvish clothes and armor, bearing Elvish weapons. “Looks like you’ve got a story to tell, lad, but I don’t have time to hear it. I thank you for the warning.”

He shouted for one of his warriors, who rode up on an armored ram. “Give the lad your mount, Durgin. Then get Fundril for me.” He skewered me with his sharp gaze again. “Your uncle’s haring up Ravenhill after Azog, lad, set on taking the head of the beast. You hare after him and tell him he’s running into an ambush. Got that?”

The warrior gave me a leg up onto the ram. I hastily got into the stirrups and gathered up the reins. This, at least, was a mount I could handle. “Yes, sir.”

“Ride hard, lad. He’s got a good start on you. Catch him before he’s got both Azog the Defiler and your second army to contend with.”

The Orcs came on us again, and Dain charged to meet them, spouting obscenities at full roar. I sent my ram bolting south, towards the southernmost peak before Erebor, the wise ravens’ perch called Ravenhill.

 

* * *

 

I straddled my ram, winging my Elvish sword right and left to fend off the Orcs that tried to stop me. The ram was a true war mount, so maddened by the smell of blood that it crushed any enemy before it under its sharp hooves. We battered our way to the base of Ravenhill, where three other rams milled nearby. I jumped off, already searching the flanks of the hill for Thorin. Though I had never seen Erebor or the land around it, I knew that Ravenhill was the highest point south of Erebor, and my people had built a watchtower atop it. Orc pennants rose above it today, a desecration that drew my growl. I headed up the slope and into the watchtower to find my uncle.

“Uncle!” I shouted. “Thorin!”

“Kíli?” That was Fíli, all but choking on his disbelief. My brother appeared above me, then ran to throw his arms around me. “Kíli! It is you! Where in the name of the Valar have you been? I thought you’d drowned in the river!”

“I almost did, but there’s no time to tell you now. There’s a second army of Orcs on its way, about to overrun us. We’ve got to pull back or we’re going to be fighting more than Azog.”

Thorin appeared behind Fíli. “Kíli! How –”

“No time, Uncle,” I cut him off, and told him swiftly of the army I’d seen. “Ravenhill’s about to be overrun.”

Thorin swore under his breath. “Azog’s not here. Pulled back. Dwalin’s dealing with the outriders of his rabble. You and Fíli take yourselves out of here, and I’ll find Dwalin.”

He ran up the steps of the watchtower, leaving my brother and I to eye each other.

“You look half Elf,” Fíli murmured, as he looked me up and down. “You’re still short, but nearly as thin as they are, and that armor fits you better than it ought to. Nice bow. How’d that happen in the space of three days?”

I grinned as I hugged my brother, so glad was I to see him again. “Elf magic and an Elf maid. Your three days have been three months for me.”

Fíli looked alarmed. “Three months – wait, what do you mean, an Elf maid? Not that firebrand Tauriel?”

“Tauriel. My _amrâlimê_.”

Fíli’s jaw dropped, but he brought himself to business. “That’s a tale I want to hear. But we have a few Orcs to dispose of first. I’ll take left; you, right. And watch yourself, brother. Now that I have you back, I want to keep you.”

We butted foreheads before we separated. I hefted my blade and edged forward. A stair down was before me, so I slipped to the next level. I’d ventured only a few more steps forward when I heard shouts and scuffles above me. Below me, down the slope, I spotted Legolas, Tauriel, and the little hobbit, Bilbo. They shouted in horror, and Fíli screamed above me.

“No! Run! Run!”

His scream was cut off, and a second later his body hurtled down before me. He landed hard on his back, arms out flung. His eyes were wide open. So was his chest. He’d been stabbed through the heart, the wound gaping so wide that I knew he’d died before he’d fallen. My eyes misted over in red. Howling, I flung myself back up the stairs to find the butcher who’d murdered my brother.

How many Orcs rushed me on my way up? More than I could count, but all of them fell to Dwarvish rage and Elvish steel. It didn’t matter that that they towered over me, or that their blades were twice as heavy as mine. They all fell. Nothing withstood me, nothing stopped me as I raced to the top of the watchtower and out onto the landing.

A hulking Orc, that pale, mangled Orc we’d seen leading the Gundebad column, circled the landing and leaped down the stairs –

 “Kíli!” Tauriel shrieked from below. I heard the clash of blades. Now fear blazed through me.

“Tauriel!” I howled. “ _Amrâlimê_!”

I raced to the stair, but skidded to a stop. Bolg hulked just below me, and Tauriel faced him with her sword and one knife at the ready. She launched herself at the Orc again, slashing him so deeply that black blood flooded from his chest, but Bolg ignored it as if he were impervious to pain. A hard blow of his fist flung her against the stone, where she crumpled, unable to rise and her sword out of reach.

I tore my Elvish bow from its harness, and one of the slender Elvish arrows. I put three arrows into the back of the monster before he turned towards me with a roar. I put two more into his chest before I jumped on top of him with my sword high. I slashed hard, aiming for his eyes, but he deflected my blade away with one fist, uncaring when his arm gushed blood. He knocked me across the stairway with his other fist, stamping after me with a roar, hands grabbing for my legs. I kicked, but he latched onto one and yanked me close, sword upraised. I fought to bring my blade up to block his, but when he hammered his down, it almost broke my blade and my arms. He grabbed me by the neck, bent me over his thigh nigh to break my back, and his sword went high, aiming for my heart –

“Kíli!” Tauriel screamed, and leaped on the Orc’s back to slash her knife across his neck. She twisted one of the arrows I’d put in him, drawing his howl, and slammed her knife straight down, deep into the base of his neck. She plunged the second one in on the other side, sawing both of them furiously to wreak more damage. He howled, again, loosening his grip on my throat until I could slice my sword across whatever flesh I could reach. It cut deeply into his thigh; I hoped it severed his femoral artery. A shock ran through his body, enough that I kicked myself out of his hands and scrabbled free.

My bow lay nearby. I grabbed it and nocked another arrow to fire it point blank into his throat. His spasms flung Tauriel to the edge of the platform, where she landed with a cry. Bolg staggered backwards, snarling. I nocked my last arrow. I’d put this one through his one good eye when he charged me – but instead of charging me, a savage, mocking grin twisted his face, and he lunged for Tauriel, grabbing her by the neck.

“No!” I howled, and sent my last arrow into his flesh under his arm, without visible effect. How did he move so easily when I’d buried eight arrows so deeply into his body? He jerked Tauriel off her feet, and made to fling her over the side of the platform and onto the rocks below. But Tauriel had dug her hands into his flesh like claws, and she didn’t fall. Instead, her momentum swung her around Bolg, and her foot just kissed the stone. She shoved hard with a grunt, enough that Bolg overbalanced and plunged over the side.

Tauriel, my _amrâlimê_ , was still caught in the Orc’s chokehold, and the pair of them fell together, out of sight.

“No! Tauriel!” I shrieked, racing to the edge. An Orc came after me, but I winged my sword through him, then another, so blind with rage that I didn’t see either fall. I scrabbled away, found the stair, and flung myself down. Below me lay Tauriel, either stunned or dead. Between us, Bolg staggered to his feet. He looked up at me, licked his lips in malice, and climbed down after Tauriel. I wouldn’t reach her before the Orc would.

“Tauriel! Get up. Get up!” I shouted in despair, but her movements were so feeble that she wouldn’t rise before Bolg was on her. How grotesque was it to watch that hulking mass of dead grey, sprouting my arrows like spikes between the metal plates he’d embedded in his flesh, stalking my _amrâlimê_? Even if I reached him, he had only to kick her over the ledge where she lay, onto the sharp rocks below.

The tortured bellow of a maddened beast echoed off the rocks. The stone shook, and I held my hands over my head as a shower of stone cascaded down. Across the way, part of the watchtower fell slowly towards me, and the body of a mangled thing, a giant beast debased with metal claws for limbs and blinded with chains, fell into the abyss. The tower crashed down, making a bridge over which Legolas came running. I might have called him a snot once, but I forgave him all because Bolg turned away from Tauriel with a grunt of anticipation and stalked towards Legolas. I scrambled down to Tauriel as Bolg and Legolas squared off.

“Tauriel,” I whispered, pulling her away from the edge. “Tauriel, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me! Stay with me!”

Her eyes were shut, but she groped for my hand and held it strongly. “I’m here, Kíli. I’m here.”

“Bless the Valar. We have to get away from here, _amrâlimê_ , before we’re overrun.”

I carried her up the slope to the base of the stairs. Below, Legolas and Bolg fought, but perhaps the wounds that Tauriel and I had inflicted slowed the Orc enough because Legolas eventually buried his knife deep into his brain. Legolas took off Bolg’s misshapen head just to make sure he stayed dead, and we saluted him when he looked up to us. I took Tauriel in my arms again, and carried her up the stairs.

We came again to the top of the watchtower, but the day’s horror was not yet over. At the edge of an icy pool at the far end of the expanse lay another dead Orc. Just beyond lay a Dwarf’s body, with a smaller body huddled beside it. The Orc was Azog, the huge pale Orc that had harried us almost since we’d left the Shire. The Dwarf was Uncle Thorin, and the smaller body was the hobbit, Bilbo.

I skirted the broken ice and kneeled beside Bilbo. The hobbit was sobbing in silence, for my uncle was close to death, his body split almost as badly as Fíli’s had been, with blood pooling on the ice around him. I laid Tauriel down by Bilbo, then crawled to Thorin.

“Uncle,” I whispered.

His eyes fluttered open, fixed on me, and his bloodied lips curved up in a slight smile. “Kíli? How are you alive?”

“It’s a long story, uncle. I tried to get here in time. I’m sorry I was late.”

His fingers gestured in dismissal. “Azog took your brother. I took him. It’s good you’re alive.”

“I know, Uncle. King Thranduil’s son, Legolas, and Tauriel and I took Bolg, and the Elvish troops along with Dain’s and the Men of Laketown are routing the Orcs. We’ve won the day. You’re king under the mountain.”

Thorin smiled. So little blood remained in his body that he was grey. He had only seconds left. I took his hand, and kissed his forehead.

“You are king now. Rule well, Kíli. For our people.”

He closed his eyes, and died.

I bowed over him, unashamed to keen in full voice. Bilbo had come to know Thorin well during our journey, despite Thorin’s initial mistrust, and his sorrow was almost as profound as mine. The hobbit laid his hand on my shoulder to offer solace, and Tauriel’s quickly joined his as we mourned together.

After some time, I looked up. Bilbo sat beside me, his eyes red and streaming. “I’m sorry, Kíli. So sorry. I loved your uncle, too.”

I nodded.

“You’re king under the mountain, now,” Bilbo said.

I shook my head. “I’m no king, Bilbo. I never wanted to be, and I’m wise enough to know that I’d be a poor one. Let Dain be king. He’ll do a better job of it.”

“They’ll know you’re alive,” the hobbit protested.

“No, they won’t,” I replied. “Fíli is dead, and so is my uncle. You’re the only other one of the company who’s seen me. Let them go on thinking that I drowned in the river as we left King Thranduil’s realm.”

The hobbit eyed me curiously, registering my borrowed Elvish armor. “But that didn’t happen.”

“It nearly did.”

The hobbit might seem innocent and soft, but he was far shrewder than he appeared, and he took stock of what lay between Tauriel and me quickly enough. He nodded.

“May you find happiness, then,” he wished us both in his quiet way. The hobbit sat back against the broken ice, to keep watch over my uncle’s body. It seemed wrong to leave him there, but Bilbo patted my knee.

“Go in good heart, Kíli. Make something better of this day, something that has nothing to do with gold or mountains. You’re right to be rid of both.”

I mustered a smile. “I thank you. Will you be all right here?”

“I should think so,” he said comfortably. “I’ll see to Thorin, and Fíli, and keep my own counsel about the rest. If either of you ever reach the Shire, I’d savor a visit. Tea is at four, and supper at six. You don’t have to knock. Good-bye, Kíli, and Lady Tauriel.”

“Master Hobbit,” she said softly.

“Bilbo Baggins, at your service,” he nodded over her hand. “You’d better go, if you want to remain unnoticed.”

We left the little hobbit sitting there, quietly mourning. He had proved far wiser than most of us, and I took comfort in his parting words as Tauriel and I limped away from the battleground.

 

* * *

 

We retreated to the forest while the forces of war spent themselves. Both of us were numb. Tauriel was battered and bruised from Bolg’s savage attack; I, while in better physical straits, was devastated at the loss of my family. My uncle had been the father Fíli and I hadn’t had, lending his guidance and love as his travels allowed. My brother had been my constant companion, both the one who teased me most as well as my staunchest defender. To see them both so brutally slain... I have no words.

At some point, I felt something slip into my hands. It was my rune stone I had given Tauriel as a pledge. In giving it back to me, Tauriel reminded me that I wasn’t alone – she was with me. Few gestures have touched me so much.

When we were able, we walked to Laketown, as anonymous as the rest of the Elves and Dwarves from the combined armies who went about the grim business of repairing the devastation of war. In the remains of the smashed town, we offered our skills as smith and field medics, and we were quickly put to work. We couldn’t yet speak of the war, and we couldn’t yet face what we wanted from the future. At night, we huddled together in a makeshift tent to find what solace we could for our losses, and Tauriel watched over me as I slept.

I worked the forge one dank afternoon when a flash of blond hair caught my eye, then the flame of red that identified my _amrâlimê_. It was Legolas who spoke to Tauriel. I wiped my sweaty face on my arm and let my hammer lie while I watched the two of them. I had never seen them in private discussion before. The way he leaned towards her, the intensity of his eyes on her... I swallowed. He’d cared for her before today, and if her attraction to him was not as deep, she’d welcomed his regard before she met me. Tauriel had explained that Legolas was a Grey Elf, a royal Sindar, while she was a less exalted Nandor, but she still shared a kinship with him that she would never share with me. No matter what Tauriel had said to me, no matter what I felt in my heart, watching her with King Thranduil’s son cut as deep as a dagger. When they approached, I knew what she was about to say.

“Prince Legolas,” I said evenly. “I’m grateful to you for finishing the Pale Orc’s son. You saved Tauriel’s life.”

That caught the Elf off guard, but he gathered himself enough to give me a short bow. “You fought well against him. You saved her life, as well.”

I nodded acceptance, but glanced at Tauriel. It was likely more of a wince than a look, because the next words I expected to hear were that she was leaving.

“Legolas brings the word I expected,” she said, looking anywhere but at me. “The king has banished me for raising my hand against his order to kill you, even though now he admits his order was rash.”

“I’m sorry,” I nodded, and waited.

Legolas turned to her, his hand on her arm as if I weren’t here. “Where will you go?”

I shut my eyes. _Just say it. Just admit it, that you’re going off with the prince._

“Here, but just for a few days. After that, we don’t know. But we will find someplace for the two of us.”

I snuck a surprised look at Tauriel. She looked back at me, and winked. She’d known what I’d feared, and her wink was both reminder and reassurance.

“You don’t intend to remain in Erebor?” Legolas gave me a look. “He’s the –”

“No, he’s not,” I cut in. “No matter who I remind you of, he’s gone, and I’ve no desire to masquerade as a dead prince. I’m a smith and a warrior, and gladly, so I’ll thank you again if you’ll speak of me as such to anyone who asks.”

Legolas was so bemused that his only response was a single raised eyebrow. Tauriel laid a hand on his arm. “I ask you to do the same.”

The look they exchanged was a story that only my time with Tauriel allowed me to read. Whatever glimmerings of attraction there might once have been between them, Tauriel had made her choice, and Legolas could only concede to it. He did so with more grace than I expected.

“I wish you well, then. Find happiness.”

He nodded to me, then threaded his way through the bustle.

When he was out of sight, Tauriel considered me. “Why did you doubt so? Are you so unsure?”

I shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “He _is_ a prince, you know. Your own kind. You’d have an easier time of it with him than with me.”

She put her arms akimbo. “I’ll have the time I want, with the prince I want, won’t I?”

Her truculent tone and arrogant attitude mimicked Dwarvish cheek so well that I laughed. Then I let go of the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “To be the _a'maelamin_ of a fiery Elvish warrior maid still seems like a dream. I keep thinking that I’ll wake up and find I’ve imagined it.”

When she smiled, her face lit, easing her depression that had lingered since the battle. My spirits lifted in response, and I pulled her close for a kiss, a kiss that she savored as if I’d given her a treasure.

“Where shall we go then, _amrâlimê_?” I asked. “I’ve chosen exile from Erebor, and you’re exiled from your home. I can’t go back to the Blue Mountains without having to be the prince I don’t want to be.”

“And we can’t stay here, even if we wanted to, for someone other than Legolas will find us out in time.”

I nodded, taking her hands in mine. Dirt never seemed to cling to an Elf, but my hands were grimed from the forge. It amazed me that Tauriel never seemed to mind. How had I earned such a blessing as her regard? “I wondered if we might find a place in... Rivendell.”

Tauriel’s eyebrows went up. “Imladris? Lord Elrond’s realm?”

I caressed her long, slender fingers, admiring them, savoring their touch yet again. “I can’t think of any other place where the two of us together might find refuge. Lord Elrond was gracious to me when our company visited, and you would be considered kin, yes?”

Tauriel looked more animated than she had for days. “I hadn’t thought of Imladris. The Nandor are not kin to the Rivendell Elves, who escaped with Lord Elrond from Eregion, but you are right that we are all Elves. We can but ask, and if it is not to be, then we’ll look elsewhere.”

I felt better seeing Tauriel’s spark brighten. “All right. We’ll have enough to trade for mounts and traveling supplies in a few days. No more than a week.”

“Good.” She kissed me again, smiling. “We have a plan. I’m glad.”

I expect that the grin on my face was foolish, but I didn’t care who saw it. I went back to my hammer with renewed energy.

In five days, Tauriel and I bartered the work we’d done for a horse for her, a pony for me, and traveling supplies for a week or two. We turned our mounts east, away from the Lonely Mountain, Laketown, and all that had happened there, clad in our Elvish armor, with weapons to hand. The forests still harbored enough Orcs that it was too dangerous to venture forth unarmed. Our plan was to travel through Mirkwood on the paths Tauriel knew, then venture across Beorn’s lands and from there to Rivendell. But we had not gotten more than a few miles from Laketown before we spotted a pair of mounted figures ahead, waiting of us.

“That is the hobbit, Bilbo,” Tauriel pointed to the small figure on the pony.

“And the other is Gandalf,” I grinned, and cast her a look. “Have you ever met a wizard before?”

She urged her horse forward. “No, but I would like change that!” she called over her shoulder, and I chased after her with a laugh.

The grey wizard was smiling as we rode up. His keen eyes measured Tauriel and me in turn, and he stroked his beard with satisfaction. “Master Kíli. And Mistress Tauriel. Good. Yes, very good. Both of you – no, three of you. Yes. Very good, indeed. This changes things to come for the better.”

Tauriel and I exchanged startled glances, and Bilbo’s jaw dropped as he considered the wizard as if he’d been left out of a joke. Tauriel’s expression was much more sedate than mine; I was over the moon as I stretched up in my pony’s stirrups to kiss her. Still, she kissed me back with enough delight that I remembered little else for days.

 

* * *

 

Tauriel and I raised many eyebrows when Gandalf and Bilbo escorted us to Rivendell, but traveling with a wizard, even an enigmatic one, has its advantages. Whatever he said to Lord Elrond in private granted us the chance to ask for asylum in this beautiful city. We made the best case we could, as we didn’t want to live off Rivendell’s largess, so offered our skills as warriors, a healer, and a smith to make our way.

“Kíli is also a skilled gardener,” Tauriel quipped with surprising irreverence, drawing my blush and Lord Elrond’s bemused frown. Gandalf chuckled softly beside us as if he knew the story, which wouldn’t surprise me. Wizards have ways to find out even the most private of details, through means beyond my understanding.

“I have had... some small experience in gardening, yes,” I replied. “But mostly underground, which... doesn’t apply here. It was a... special commission.”

“I can hardly refuse two gifted in such surprising ways, even without a wizard’s meddling,” Lord Elrond said, his chin cradled in one hand and his eyes on Gandalf. Far from looking embarrassed, the wizard looked extraordinarily pleased with himself, and he beamed at the two of us. “It will be good to hear a child’s voice again in this place. It has been many years since we have been so graced.”

I grimaced. “About that... I might as well warn you ahead of time. My mother claims that my brother and I were the worst troublemaking bairns she’d ever seen. Into everything. So I beg your indulgence ahead of time, and suggest that you move the good crockery out of reach now.”

Lord Elrond’s laugh was light. “I shall put the city on guard, Master Dwarf.”

And so it turned out to be. Tauriel and I subjected the ethereal Elvish city to uncounted indignities through the years as our four bairns racketed around the halls and pavilions in full voice. We met a young Ranger named Aragorn when one of our sons careened full bore into him as he entered the city on one of his rare visits. He became a frequent visitor during his times in the city, as he liked to ease his cares with the sound of childish laughter. Bilbo, too, we saw almost daily once he left Hobbiton and made Rivendell his home.

Gradually, the Elves grew accustomed to having a Dwarf in their midst, though I attribute that to Tauriel’s grace and the novelty of our children more than anything to do with me. I had not understood why a race so long lived, with such a love of children, was in decline. Tauriel explained it as another aspect of the Elves’ coolness as a race. Perhaps. As she had learned, Dwarves are of much hotter blood; we have few children despite our long lives, too, but the rarity of our women has more to do with that than our lack of application, so to speak.

With each the passing of each year in Rivendell, the gift of Tauriel’s regard for me grew deeper and more complex. I am no longer the callow Dwarf who mooned so badly over the glance of a red-haired Nandor Elf maid, but my _amrâlimê_ entrances me now even more than she did then. I have grown a bit more black hair, if no more beard. I am still considered tall and slender for a Dwarf, and short and over-muscled for an Elf. I spend my days at the forge, melding Elvish artistry and Dwarvish skill with metal, stone, and glass; I’m pleased to say that my work has some following, especially my blades, so we live well. Tauriel is again a captain of the guard, and we both ride out regularly in Rivendell’s defense. We have a garden that we tend as our duties allow. Our children, while still very young for either Dwarves or Elves, are all taller than I. They favor the looks and fiery temperament of their parents, but Elvish glamour is strong in them; seeing them, I wondered if the one my mother favored was Elvish, which would explain much about me, as well as the brother I still miss.

 

* * *

 

Seventy-seven years have passed since we arrived in Rivendell at the end of the quest to reclaim Erebor. Today, a new quest would begin. The city was hosting a great gathering of all Middle Earth’s free peoples, Men and Dwarves and Elves, to consider what to do about the growing shadow over the land. The whispers through the city spoke of the formless evil, Sauron, and his return and rise in Mordor to the east. While Tauriel and I would not be privy to the council, we awaited the attendees with interest. King Thranduil had sent a delegation, and so had my people, and we wondered if we would know any of them. My _amrâlimê_ and I watched the delegates assemble from Bilbo’s balcony. The hobbit revealed that he would be part of the coming council, and that his nephew, Frodo, would also.

“Kind Thranduil has sent Legolas with his delegation,” Tauriel said, looking down at the blond Elf.

“Do you remember Gloin of our company, Bilbo?” I asked. At his smile of remembrance, I pointed to one of the Dwarves, a burly, red-haired young Dwarf standing well apart from the Woodland Elves’ delegation. “That looks like Gimli, his son. He’s but a few years younger than I am. He wanted to be part of our company to Erebor, but he was too young.”

“And you weren’t, young Kíli?” Bilbo laughed. “Our Legolas is about to get a sharp reminder of his meeting with Gloin, I imagine. I was lurking nearby when he searched Gloin for weapons, that day in Mirkwood when the spiders attacked. He made some rather rude remarks about the pictures Gloin carried of his family. I hope he’s become more tolerant since then.”

I smirked. “Gimli is likely no more tolerant, I’m afraid. He has a low opinion of Elves.”

Tauriel sighed. “Ours are both stubborn peoples.”

Bilbo puffed his pipe and conceded the truth of that. “Gandalf’s never understood such squabbling, you know. It comes of being several thousand years old, I imagine – our grievances must all seem rather silly to him. He’d like the three of us to mitigate that, you with a word to your kin, and I with a word to Frodo. I expect to see my nephew any moment, truth be told.”

We got up to make our way out. “Then enjoy the visit with your kin, Bilbo,” Tauriel said. “Come to supper with us after the council, if there isn’t a formal affair, if you like.”

“Nonsense! I want you to meet my nephew and his cousins, and I want them to meet you. They think I made up my adventure with you, you know. Meeting you would convince them otherwise, at least I hope it would.”

There was a clatter at the door, and four young hobbits rushed into the room with much happy laughter. The sounded like our children, so excited were they to be in the city. It was delightful to listen to them, though they quieted when they spotted Tauriel and me by Bilbo on the balcony.

“You’re right on time, Frodo, my lad, and Merry and Pippin, too, and there’s Sam. Come in, come in! I want you to meet two of my closest friends. May I present Tauriel and Kíli?”

Pippin’s eyebrows went up. “Not that Kíli? I thought he was dead –”

The hobbit named Merry thumped Pippin in the ribs hard enough that the latter glared at his friend in affront.

“Does he look dead, Pip? Pay no attention to him,” Merry told us. Behind him, the stout hobbit named Sam looked embarrassed, and Frodo smothered laughter with a hand over his mouth. “He never thinks about what comes out of his mouth.”

 “Tauriel says the same of me,” I laughed, taking her hand to ease my words. “I do my best to listen to her, as she’s far wiser than I.”

“So you are that... uh, the Kíli that Bilbo wrote about?” Sam asked diffidently.

“I suppose I am.” I shrugged. “But that was years ago.”

“But – but you could have been king!” Pippin persisted, and I laughed when Merry gave him such a hard thump that Pippin yelped.

“So I could,” I agreed. “But why would I want to be a king, when I had an Elf maid who loved me as much as Tauriel did? Why would I want to be a king, when I loved her just as much?”

That silenced all four of our visitors, who looked amongst themselves until Tauriel took pity on them. “Master Pippin, Master Merry, and Master Sam, when it’s time for the council that Bilbo and Frodo must attend, come to our rooms and meet our children. I think the exercise would do you good.”

“You have... children?” Merry asked delicately.

I grinned at the speculative look in his eyes. Pippin might be the naïve one, but Merry knew his way around. I winked at him. “Four. All of them irrepressible. All about your age, I think. They’ll lead you on a merry chase.”

At their nods, Tauriel and I rose to bid Bilbo goodbye. Tauriel brushed a kiss on his cheek, drawing the old hobbit’s pleased grin. “Until later, Bilbo,” she wished him, then took the arm I offered her. We bowed to the four young hobbits and made our way out.

We had our visit with the young hobbits, and many more during the days to come as the council dragged on. Merry and Pippin came most often. Our children were entranced with their new friends, for the two youngest hobbits were as full of mischief as our children, and Rivendell rang with their antics. When I winced about the trampled gardens and noisy games, Tauriel told me not to worry.

“Their path will be dark soon, Kíli. Let them play like children now.”

I sobered. She was right. Soon that path would darken all of us, maybe forever.

We did meet both Legolas and Gimli. Legolas spoke mostly with Tauriel, and I didn’t press her given that he was civil to me, and unbent enough to visit us and our children two or three times. My meeting with Gimli began more by chance.

“Kíli! By the hammer, is that you?” Gimli’s voice boomed after me near the stables. “Kíli!”

Laughing, I turned and held out my arms to my cousin. I had just finished my turn on Rivendell’s patrol, so I was in armor and had my horse in tow. Gimli threw his arms around me and we banged foreheads as Dwarves do. “Gimli, you old mine rat! You’ve grown a beard worthy of your father since last we met!”

“And you still haven’t,” he laughed, but without meanness. He held me at arms’ length. “Look at you! Decked out like a pointy-eared Elf! And you cannot tell me that your legs have grown long enough to ride that horse!”

I guffawed. “I can’t ride a pony when it’s my turn on the perimeter sweep outside the city, can I? Since I couldn’t make my legs longer, I came up these.” I pointed to the extra straps and rigging that kept me atop the horse. I rubbed my horse’s nose affectionately. “Mellianth knows what to do from my voice and how I shift my weight, so we’re just as fast to chase down an Orc as anyone.”

One of the Elves I’d ridden with today passed by with a smile. “Good shooting, Kíli. That bastard almost skewered me.”

“Yah, we got him and two of his bastard friends, to boot, and Limnoth got the leader of the maggots.” I slapped his back. “A good day.”

The Elf laughed and took his horse down the stable line. As I took Mellianth into his stall and shoved over the box I used to take off the saddle, I translated the exchange for Gimli, then described our foray as any Dwarf would – replete with profanity. As I worked, other Elves called a greeting, and I pointed my chin at Gimli.

“My cousin. Here to give me grief.”

They laughed, and Gimli looked suspiciously at them, close to taking offense.

I put a hand on his arm before he pulled out his axe. “I told them you’re my cousin, here to give me a rasher of shit. They said I deserve everything you give me.”

“I’ll say you do!” Gimli growled. “How by Smaug did you get here? Everyone thought you died at Erebor with your brother and Thorin – but clearly not. What happened, cousin? Why didn’t you join us at Erebor?”

I sobered. “I didn’t want to be king, Gimli. I would have been a terrible one. I saw Fíli slain, and my uncle, and so many more, both enemies and friends, that I still can’t fathom it. I knew I couldn’t give Erebor what she needed. Dain’s done a good job, so I hear, so I am content.”

“But here?” Gimli was incredulous. “Oh, I grant you the architecture is nice enough, in a flighty sort of way. But – but – but there are Elves here!”

I laughed as I came out of Mellianth’s stall and fastened the door behind me. “Quite a lot of them. But I had other reasons to find a place among them. They don’t make fun of my beard, do they?”

“Bugger you and your beard, Kíli,” he scoffed. “What could they possibly offer you to make you live among them, rather than with your kin?”

“The best thing of all, cousin. My _amrâlimê_ is a Nandor Elf from the Woodland Realm. We’ve made our sanctuary here for nearly eighty years.”

Gimli’s jaw dropped, and I thought he might explode. A thunderous look creased his brow, and he drew breath to curse.

“Careful, cousin,” I cautioned, smiling, my hand on my sword. “I don’t have quite the hot temper I used to have when I was in my seventies, but insulting my wife will rouse what remains of it. So mind your words. Come on, then. I’m just coming off duty, and heading home to supper. Come with me and prove to yourself that I have excellent taste in a wife.”

Gimli was too stunned to stop me from dragging him along, and by the time we’d gone the short distance from the stables to my rooms, he’d wrestled himself into a strangled silence.

“A N-N-Nandor Elf?” was all he managed.

“Aye, a beauty, with red hair like flames, green eyes like emeralds, and a pair of knives that she wields like magic. The first time I saw her, she killed two giant spiders the size of oliphaunts that were about to kill me. It was love at first glimpse. She was captain of King Thranduil’s guard then. She’s one of Lord Elrond’s now. A warrior. Wait ‘til you see her, Gimli. She’s the most precious jewel in the world.”

Of course, with that buildup, Gimli was speechless when I dragged him through our door. Tauriel was in the garden, arranging supper in the open air, as we were wont to do in good weather.

“Tauriel? Tauriel, I’ve brought a visitor. I hope we have enough in the larder, for he’s a glutton. Come on, cousin, come meet my _amrâlimê_.”

I had time to wink at Tauriel as I hauled Gimli behind me, and she smothered a laugh. She held out her hand to my cousin and bowed.

“You must be Gimli. Kíli’s told me of you. I’m glad you came to visit. Would you like red wine or ale with your supper?”

Gimli’s jaw dropped, maybe at Tauriel’s casual greeting, or maybe at her bright beauty. She wore a simple tunic of russet and green over deerskin leggings and boots, but she appeared as fiery yet ethereal as she always did. Once Gimli reluctantly shook her hand, she bent to kiss me and we shared a wry look as I caressed her cheek.

“Ale for me, I think,” I said. “Shall I get it?”

“Please,” Tauriel agreed. “I have the wine, but bring the bread. I’ll get more ham...” Tauriel paused as I mouthed something behind Gimli’s back, “or perhaps Gimli would prefer salted pork?”

“Salted pork?” Gimli repeated, interested despite himself. When we were lads, Gimli had gobbled so much salted pork that his mother had had to put a lock on the larder door. “Oh... that’d be fine, lass.”

“Come on,” I gestured to Gimli, smothering my grin. “The ale’s this way.”

Out in the hall, I hung my bow, quiver, sword, and knife on their hooks beside Tauriel’s blades, and laid my armor beside hers on the bench by the door. Once I’d pulled on the old shirt, trews, and house boots I kept there, I led Gimli to the ale keg. I drew him a Dwarf-sized mug, and another for myself. I tossed him a roll and snagged another for myself before I took up the basket and led him back to the garden. The roll would give him something to chew on while he found his tongue.

“Not bad,” he hefted his mug as I set the basket down and pointed him to a chair.

“It’s Barliman’s Best, from Bree,” I said through a mouthful of roll. I took the chair beside Gimli’s, slumped comfortably, and washed down my roll with a deep gulp of ale. “Bilbo put me on to it. Not bad at all.”

“You – you _married_ an Elf?” he finally gasped, and hastily gulped his ale as Tauriel brought out heaping plates of ham and salted pork. I took them from her as she returned to the kitchen.

“Worse than that,” I said airily, as Tauriel appeared with the salad she usually ate and a bowl of my favorite, steaming potatoes dressed with cream and butter. I winked at Tauriel, whose eyes twinkled as she sat down. “Much worse.”

“Much, much worse,” Tauriel took up our usual line of banter with new guests. “We have four children.”

“So far.” I finished with an anticipatory glance at my _amrâlimê_ , who returned it in kind. Poor Gimli was so apoplectic that I took pity on him and passed him the salted pork. “Help yourself, cousin.”

We talked slowly at first, but with increasing ease as the meal went on. What finally eased Gimli’s heart was the arrival of our children with Merry and Pippin in tow. They tumbled down upon us, wreaking havoc on the food and chattering merrily. Gimli, like most Dwarves, doted on children, and these were no exception, no matter that they were a clear mix of races.

“Come on, you lot!” I bellowed without heat as the six young ones grabbed for food with no less cheek than I had once upon a time in a hobbit hole. “Give your cousin a proper hello before you pillage the table. This is Gimli, son of Gloin.”

“ _That_ Gloin?” Merry and Pippin chorused, and that started the laughter again. I’m sure any Elf within earshot wondered what devilry we were up to, but I was glad to savor the hubbub in light of what might descend upon us in the days to come.

Eventually the children rattled away with Merry and Pippin, and Tauriel rose from the table. “Stay and talk with Gimli, _a'maelamin_. You’ve missed your family for so many years. Savor the chance while you have it.” She held her hand out to Gimli, and this time he had the grace to take it with less hesitation. “You’re welcome any time, Cousin Gimli.”

“Tauriel,” he managed, with a gruff nod. We left her in the twilight and retreated to the snug sitting room where a warm fire and the nearby ale barrel invited private conversation.

It was close to dawn before Gimli headed back to his room. We’d had seventy-seven years to talk about and enough ale to make a good tale of them all. I let him go only when he promised to come back, to which he agreed easily enough. Maybe his shock at my association with Elves had eased a bit when doused in so much prime ale. I drained my mug – it’d been years since I’d drunk so much – and shuffled slowly off to bed.

Tauriel was still in the garden when I passed by, for that was where she generally took her nightly refreshment from the starlight as Elves did. I padded sleepily towards her to kiss her. As I touched her cheek, she sniffed in a most un-Elflike manner. “You smell like a brewery vat.”

I belched and scratched my stomach to tease her, grinning when she waved away the yeasty fumes. “Yes, I do, _amrâlimê_. With good reason. I think we emptied the barrel.”

“Why does the Dwarvish tongue sound like it’s nothing but swearing?”

“Because most of it is. Among the lads, anyway. Can’t say for the maids.”

She regarded me with amusement. “Then you swore a great deal tonight, I think.”

“Dwarvish diplomacy.”

She laughed as she handed me her goblet, then rose. “You’ve lived for seventy-seven years among Elves, _a’maelamin_ , yet it takes only one evening with another Dwarf for you to revert to the most appalling manners.”

My chuckle was unrepentant. The goblet held Tauriel’s preferred red wine rather than ale, but in deference to her I drank half of what was left to sweeten my breath, then offered her my arm as we walked to our bedchamber. One of Tauriel’s many delights was her habit to lie down with me each night until I fell asleep. Despite the nearness of dawn and the reek of ale, I was touched that she intended to keep to her habit. “Whatever happens when you put two Dwarves in front of a full keg of ale shouldn’t surprise anyone.”

She slipped off her robe and slid into bed to watch me undress. “I suppose not.”

I tossed my shirt on the chair by the bed, stripped my trews and smalls, and took a quick splash in the basin. “How went the Elvish diplomacy? I wager that you poured a torrent of our best wine into Legolas before you reconciled him to your ill-advised pairing with a Dwarf.”

“Just the single goblet, and I doubt if it had any effect. I merely showed him how happy I am with you and our children, and left the rest up to him.”

“Then we’ve done what we can to soothe the tempers of the council’s attendees. Gandalf will be happy.”

I dried, downed the last of Tauriel’s wine, and crawled into bed to snuggle her close, grinning when she tried to wave away my breath. She escaped it by turning her nose away to nuzzle my neck, which I enjoyed. Her hand silked over my skin, raising gooseflesh.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, Kíli,” she murmured. “You’ve missed the company of kin for too long. Happy moments like this will be rarer once the council chooses its path.”

I shut my eyes and caressed Tauriel’s long, elegant form in the dark, drawing her to hum in enjoyment. “We’ll have more. Happy moments often come when you least expect them.”

“What are you reminded of?”

“That day those great Mirkwood spiders tried to kill me. Without them, a fiery Elf maid wouldn’t have looked at a dark Dwarf quite unworthy of her, and where would that have left him? Dead by spider venom, or still locked in King Thranduil’s cell, or starved to death in _Glawar-galad_ , or impaled on Bolg’s sword at Ravenhill. Even if I’d made it through all that, where would I be now? Left to face the coming storm alone, that’s where. I much prefer to face peril with you beside me.”

Elvish lips brushed a kiss on my Dwarvish ear. “And I with you, _a’maelamin_.”

“Mmm. _You_ are my peril tonight, _amrâlimê_. Are you trying to seduce me?”

“Have you drunk too much ale to tell _?”_

“No, but I can act like I have, if it tempts you to seduce me.”

Tauriel’s breath was soft on my cheek, her hand soft on my chest. When the hand on my chest traced lower, my breath caught. “What kind of Elf maid would stoop so low as to seduce a Dwarf when he’s drunk?”

I eased my wife on top of me, and joined our bodies. Her silky red hair spilled over her shoulders and pooled on my chest, as soft as feathers. “The best kind – wild and reckless. The kind who wants to prove the legend about a drunken Dwarf in the bed of an Elf maid.”

She laughed softly. “I don’t think I’ve heard that legend.”

“Oh, it’s quite famous. It claims that if an Elf maid seduces a drunken Dwarf, she’ll be blessed with good fortune, and twins within the year. I’ve always wanted to prove that one.”

“I’ve heard a different legend about a drunken Dwarf in the bed of an Elf maid.”

“Do I know this one?” I asked, rubbing her back.

“It claims that a drunken Dwarf is much better than a sober one at satisfying a wild, reckless Elf maid. He’s less inhibited, or so it’s claimed.”

“Well... if _that’s_ what you want,” I said, reversing our positions, “then I am drunk. Wildly drunk. Very drunk, indeed. So completely and shamelessly drunk that there’s nothing an Elf maid can’t get me to do.”

“Except to stop you from smelling like a brewery vat. You’ll have to do something quite uninhibited to distract me.”

I did. So did she. Much later, we greeted the sunlight well sated.

 

 

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End file.
